, 


ir 


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TI: 


A  STORY  OF  SAN   FRANCISCO'S  CHINATOWN, 


BY  MARY  E!  BAMFORD. 


V 


CHICAGO: 
DAVID  C.  COOK  PUBLISHING  COMPANY, 

36  WASHINGTON    STREET. 


-grsr 


COPYRIGHT,  1899, 
BY  DAVID  C.  COOK  PUBLISHING  COMPANY. 


Bancroft  LibrtlJI 


TI: 

A  STORY  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO'S  CHINATOWN. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  "NEW  WORDS." 

WAS  low  tide.  Ti  sat  on  a 
board  at  the  end  of  the  net- 
drying  platform,  and  looked 
out  beyond  the  mud  flats  of  the 
bay.  He  could  see  his  father's 
junk  far  on  the  water.  The  junk  had 


i 


been  away  down  the  bay  to  San  Francisco, 
and  now  was  coming  back,  bringing  a 
load  of  salt  to  be  used  in  curing  shrimps. 
Thousands  of  shrimps  were  caught  and 
dried  every  year  at  this  isolated  California 
Chinese  fishing- village  where  Ti  lived. 


There  were  large  plank  floors  on  which 
the  shrimps  were  dried.  Tons  of  shrimps 
were  shipped  across  the  ocean  to  China 
yearly. 

His  uncle,  Lum  Lee,  hurried  past  to  get 
some  wood  to  be  used  as  fuel  in  some  of 
the  processes  of  curing  shrimps.  As  he 
ran  by,  he  looked  at  Ti  and  observed  that 
if  the  boy  should  fall  oft3  the  board  at  the 
end  of  the  net-drying  platform,  he  would 
land  in  the  mud-flat  underneath. 

"  Do  not  fall,"  he  called  out  in  Chinese, 
as  he  ran. 

But  Ti  felt  entirely  above  such  ad- 
vice. Of  course  he  could  hold  on! 
But  what  he  could  not  do  was  to  hurry 
the  coming  in  of  the  tide,  so  that  his 
father  could  bring  the  junk  to  the  wharf. 
Ti  particularly  wanted  the  junk  to  hurry, 
because,  when  going  away,  his  father  had 
said  that  he  would  bring  something  from 
the  great  city  for  a  present  to  his  boy. 
And  now,  when  the  junk  was  returning 
and  fairly  in  sight  of  the  fishing-camp, 
the  water  near  the  shore  line  of  the  bay 
must  go;  out  and  leave  nothing  but  mud- 
flats! What  junk  could  sail  on  a  mud- 
flat?  Ti  did  wish  that  the  water  would 
hurry  coming  in,  so  he  could  get  his 
present! 

What  would  it  be?    Would  it  be  a  toy 


4  TI:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 

balloon,  such  as  the  American  children    intelligible  to  American  as  well  as  Chinese 
had  sometimes?      Or  would  it  be  some    ears.     Uncle  Lum  Lee  had  long  since  dis- 


rice  cakes?  Perhaps  it 
would  be  a  fish-bladder 
covered  with  feathers, 
for  him  to  use  in  playing 
"  tack  yin."  Or  maybe 
it  would  be  candy! 

Ti  clasped  his  little 
yellow  hands  ecstatically 
across  his  "  shorn,"  as  the 
Chinese  call  the  blouse. 

But  it  does  not  do  to 
clasp  one's  hands  too 
suddenly  when  one  is 
sitting  on  the  end  of  a 
board  in  the  air!  Ti  lost 
his  balance,  screamed, 
caught  at  the  board,  and 
fell  over,  down  into  the 
mud  below!  Oh,  it  was 
dreadful!  His  thick- 
soled  shoes  and  blue 
trousers  disappeared  in 
the  mud!  The  ends  of 
his  "  shorn  "  spread  out 
over  the  mud,  and  he 


"Do  not  fall,"  called  Uncle  Lum  Lee. 


appeared,  but  See  Yow 
heard  —  old  See  Yow, 
who  was  going  through 
the  encampment  to  one 
of  the  buildings  that  had 
a  shrine,  such  as  a  joss- 
house  has.  He  was  in- 
tending to  put  some  in- 
cense sticks  before  the 
shrine,  for  he  knew  the 
proverb  of  his  people, 
"  In  passing  over  the  day 
in  the  usual  way  there 
are  four  ounces  of  sin." 
Yet  his  idea  of  "sin" 
was  very  different  from 
the  Christian  idea.  When 
he  heard  the  scream  he 
did  not  wait  to  go  to  the 
shrine,  but  hurriedly 
called  to  others  near. 
There  was  a  loud  chat- 
tering, and  at  last  little 
Ti  was  scooped  out  of 
the  mud,  as  if  he  were  a 


screamed  a  scream  that  would  have  been    new  and  valuable  variety  of  clam.    He 


Chinese  Fishing  Hamlet. 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


left  one  thick-soled  shoe  buried  far  out  of 
sight,  and  he  was  borne  away  by  old  See 
Yow  to  be  cleaned  up  again. 

While  he  scraped  and  comforted,  the 
old  man  told  Ti  how  convenient  it  would 
have  been  to-day,  if  he  had  been  one  of 
the  feathered  people,  for  then  he  could 
have  flown,  when  he  found  himself  drop- 
ping into  the  mud.  See  Yow  really  be- 
lieved that  there  are  feathered  people 
somewhere  in  the  world,  for  he  had  been 
taught  so,  when  he  was  a  boy  long  ago, 
by  a  man  from  Swatow  in  China. 

"  The  feathered  people  are  gentle,  and 
they  are  covered  with  fluffy  down,  and 
have  wings,"  said  See  Yow,  "  and  they 
sing." 

Ti  listened  and  watched  the  scraping 
off  of  his  shoe. 

The  old  man  kept  on  talking  about  the 
feathered  people.  "  If  one  wishes  to 
visit  that  nation,  he  must  go  far  to  the 
southeast  and  then  inquire,"  he  finished, 
in  the  words  of  the  tale  as  he  had  learned 
them. 

By  this  time  Ti  was  quite  as  clean  as 
he  could  be  made  in  so  short  a  time.  See 
Yow  was  always  a  kind,  lovable  old  man. 

"  When  the  junk  comes  in,  I  will  give 
you  a  piece  of  the  present  my  father 
brings  me,"  said  Ti  gratefully. 

Old  See  Yow  smiled.  "  May  the  Five 
Blessings  come  upon  you!"  he  answered 
affectionately.  "  Surely  you  were  a  child 
that  neither  learned  to  walk  nor  speak 
early  nor  had  teeth  early!" 

Now  as  certain  Chinese  believe  that  a 


child  who  does  these  things  early  has  a 
bad  disposition  and  will  grow  up  unlov- 
able, what  See  Yow  said  was  very  compli- 
mentary. And  as  the  Chinese  "  Five 
Blessings"  are  health,  riches,  long  life, 


Old  See  Yow. 

love  of  virtue,  and  a  natural  death,  the 
old  man  wished  the  best  things  he  knew 
for  Ti.  But  to  himself  he  smiled  at  little 
Ti's  promise  about  the  present,  and 
thought,  "  Some  presents  will  not  bear 
dividing!  It  is  but  a  child's  promise.  I 
shall  have  nothing." 

But  little  Ti  meant  what  he  promised. 


TI:  A   STOltY  OF  CH1NAIOWN. 


He  would  certainly  give  a  piece  of  his 
present  to  kind  old  See  Yow. 

The  little  boy  stayed  with  the  shrimp- 
curers  till  the  slow  waters  of  the  hay 
climbed  again  over  the  mud-flats  toward 
the  fishing-hamlet.  Then  the  men  on 
the  junk  out  in  the  bay  hoisted  sail,  and 
slowly  the  junk  came  toward  the  shore. 
But  about  three  hundred  yards  from  the 
shore,  it  ran  aground  in  the  mud.  Small 
boats  began  to  ply  between  the  junk  and 
the  shore,  however,  and  on  one  of  these 
boats  came  Ti's  father.  He  had  not  left 
Ti's  present  on  board  the  junk  with  the 
load  of  salt,  either.  The  present  wras  in- 
side of  the  father's  blouse. 

How  Ti  gazed,  as  his  father  fumbled  in 
his  blouse  and  brought  out  his  present! 
It  was  a  pair  of  bright,  pink,  American 
stockings!  Oh,  they  were  so  bright  and 
pink  and  pretty!  The  boy  was  delighted. 
He  had  never  had  anything  but  common 
white  stockings  to  show  above  his  low, 
thick-soled  shoes  before.  The  new  pink 
stockings  were  clocked  with  silk  up  their 
sides,  and  to  little  Ti  they  seemed  very 
beautiful. 

He  smiled  with  happiness,  for  Chinese 
small  people  when  "  dressed  up  "  like  to 
wear  pretty  colors.  Then  suddenly  he 
remembered  something.  Had  he  not 
said  he  would  divide  his  present  —  what- 
ever it  should  be  —  with  old  See  Yow? 
The  little  lad's  smile  vanished.  Must  he 
give  away  half  of  his  beautiful  new  pink 
pair  of  stockings?  What  good  was  half 
a  pair  of  stockings? 


But  the  boy's  father  was  still  fumbling 
in  his  blouse,  and  a  moment  later  he 
brought  out  some  Chinese  candy.  Put- 
ting this  into  Ti's  hands,  he  brought  out 
something  else. 

"  I  saw  the  teacher  woman  in  the  city,'' 
he  told  in  Chinese,  and  she  said,  c  Here  is 
something  for  little  Ti!  Tell  him  to 
fasten  it  up  by  a  street  door,  so  that  all 
the  fishing-people  will  see  it!' ': 

But  the  father  frowned  a  little,  as  lie 
said  this,  though  he  handed  Ti  the 
teacher's  gift,  which  was  a  piece  of  red 
paper  on  which  were  some  Chinese  words 
in  black  characters.  Ti's  father  did  not 
like  the  city  teacher  woman  very  well,  yet 
he  had  brought  the  paper  safely  because 
he  thought  that  the  little  boy  might  like 
its  red  color.  The  words  on  the  red 
paper  seemed  strange  to  him.  He  did 
not  know  what  they  meant. 

"  I  will  give  this  red  paper  to  See 
Yow/'  resolved  Ti,  taking  the  paper. 
"  Then  I  shall  not  have  to  give  him  one 
of  my  pink  stockings!  He  may  have 
some  of  my  candy,  too." 

He  ran  away  to  find  See  Yow.  The 
kind  old  man  admired  the  pink  stockings, 
refused  the  candy,  but  took  the  red  paper. 
He  tried  to  read  what  was  printed  on  it 
in  Chinese  characters,  but  he  did  not  un- 
derstand. He  puzzled  over  it  quite  a 
while. 

Ti  stood  by,  watching.  "  What  does  it 
say?"  he  asked. 

"  They  are  new  words,"  answered  old 
See  Yow. 


TI:  A    STOKY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


He  read  them  aloud  slowly:  " i  Come 
unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy 
laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest.'  y' 

Ti  did  not  know  what  they  meant.  The 
teacher  woman  in  the  great  California 
city  where  he  used  to  live  several  years 
ago  had  spoken  to  him  once  about  Christ, 
but  he  was  a  very  little  fellow  then,  and 
now  he  did  not  remember  much  she  had 
said.  So  he  could  not  help  See  Yow  to 
understand  the  words  on  the  red  paper. 

"  The  teacher  woman  said  to  put  the 
paper  up  by  a  door  where  everybody  can 
see/'  stated  Ti  in  Chinese. 

So  See  Yow  held  the  red  paper  and 
went  along  slowly  to  the  hut  where  he 
and  some  other  Chinamen  lived.  Above 
and  beside  the  outside  of  the  door  were 
already  pasted  red  or  yellow  papers  with 
inscriptions  that  said  various  things  in 
Chinese.  One  paper  said:  "May  we 
never  be  without  wisdom."  Another 
paper  read,  "  Good  hope/'  and  another, 
"  Good  will  come  to  us,"  and  another, 
"  May  heaven  give  happiness." 

But  none  of  them  held  any  such  words 
as  the  teacher  woman's  red  paper  that 
See  Yow's  wrinkled  old  hands  pasted  now 
among  the  other  inscriptions. 

Back  and  forth  through  the  narrow, 
dirty  little  street  that  ran  through  the 
hamlet  went  the  Chinese  men  and  women 
and  children.  They  were  all  so  busy  with 
the  shrimp-curing  and  the  fish-drying 
and  the  household  work  that  they  hardly 
looked  at  See  Yow's  red  paper.  Once  in 
a  while  a  man  stopped  to  look,  but  he  did 


not  know  what  the  words  meant.  Some 
of  the  Chinamen  who  had  once  lived 
down  in  the  city  had  heard  of  the  Ameri- 
cans' Christ,  but  had  not  paid  much  at- 
tention. Many  of  the  Chinese  had  lived 
in  different  fishing-villages  for  years,  and 
had  never  had  any  one  to  teach  them  of 
Christ.  See  Yow  had  lived  in  California 
many  years.  He  had  wandered  around 
through  Chinese  mining-camps  and  fish- 
ing-villages, but  in  the  mining-camps 
there  was  no  teaching  of  Chinese  about 
Christ,  and  after  all  these  years  in  a 
Christian  land,  the  poor  old  man  was  in  as 
dense  ignorance  of  Christianity  as  when 
he  came  from  his  native  land.  This 
whole  fishing-camp  where  he  now  lived 
knew  little  more  of  Christ  than  if  it  had 
been  in  China. 

After  seeing  the  paper  pasted  up  by 
the  door,  Ti  had.  run  off  with  his  own 
precious  pink  stockings.  But  old  See 
Yow  stood  still  and  looked  awhile  at  the 
red  paper,  and  tried  to  think  what  the 
words  meant.  At  last  he  shook  his  head 
slowly,  saying  as  he  turned  away: 

"  They  are  new  words.  They  are  new 
words!" 

Yet  there  those  words  of  eighteen  cen- 
turies stood  on  See  Yow's  shabby  old  out- 
ward wall,  and  hither  and  thither  went 
the  ignorant,  hard-working  Chinese  peo- 
ple, who  did  not  know  the  meaning  of 
them. 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN 
CHAPTEE II. 

THE  CALL  FOR  "CHOCK  CHEE." 

HEBE  was  great  excitement 

in     the     fishing  -  hamlet. 

There  were  six  white  men 

—  yes,  six  —  who  had  come 

to  the  hamlet,  and  no  one 
knew  wherefore! 

Outwardly  the  Chinese  were  busy 
about  their  usual  work,  but  inwardly 
they  thought  of  little  except  the  six 
white  visitors  and  their  errand.  White 
men  seldom  came  here,  for  there  was 
no    direct  communication    between    the 
isolated  hamlet  and  the  city  save  by  the 
Chinese  junk's  irregular  trips.     But  the 
six  white  men  had  come  in  another  vessel, 
now  waiting  in  the  bay.     Some  thought 
they  had  come  to  collect  poll  tax. 

"I  have  paid  poll  tax  many  times/' 
said  Kim  Tong  in  Chinese. 

"  Perhaps  they  have  come  to  hunt  for 
some  bad  Chinaman,  to  put  him  in  jail," 
suggested  Lin  Tan. 

The  six  white  men  walked  around,  ap- 
parently noting  how  many  Chinamen 
there  were  in  the  camp,  and  what  their 
occupations  were.  They  looked  at  those 
who  were  splitting  wood,  and  those  who 
were  mending  nets,  and  those  who  were 
doing  cooking,  and  those  who  were 
grinding  shrimp  shells  and  mixing  them 
with  sawdust.  Great  quantities  of  these 
ground  shells  and  sawdust  were  sent  to 
China,  there  to  be  used  as  a  fertilizer  of 
land.  The  six  strangers  looked  at  some 


HAVE  PAID 
POLL  TAX 
MANY  TIMES, 
SAID 
KIM  TONG. 


TI:  A    STOHY  OF    CHINATOWN. 


of  the  large  nets.  About  a  hundred  such 
nets  belonged  to  the  fishing  hamlet.  Two 
or  three  Chinamen  were  making  mat- 
tresses of  red  and  white  cloth,  and  the 
white  men  looked  at  these  workers. 

None  of  the  dwellers  in  the  little  ham- 
let seemed  outwardly  to  object  to  the 
white  men's  seeing  all  they  wished  to  see. 
The  Chinese  were  peaceful,  but  they  did 
have  a  desire  to  know  what  was  coming. 
They  knew  this  unexpected  visit  meant 
something. 

The  white  men  peered  into  various  lit- 
tle buildings,  and  saw  in  two  or  three  of 
them  such  shrines  as  the  Chinese  erect  for 
joss- worship. 

"  Religion  isn't  entirely  neglected 
here!"  said  one  of  the  visitors  to  another, 
laughingly. 

"  You'll  find  joss-shrines  anywhere 
where  you  find  Chinese  living,  I  guess," 
answered  the  other. 

They  had  gone  around  near  the  wharf 
again. 

"  It's  an  opportune  time  for  us  to  come 
on  our  business,"  said  a  third  white  man, 
looking  at  the  Chinese  junk  next  the 
wharf.  "  Even  their  junk  isn't  out  in  the 
bay." 

"  It  wouldn't  be  so  much  matter,  if  it 
were  out  there,"  said  another.  "  These 
Chinese  have  a  regular  system  of  signals. 
They  run  up  red  and  green  and  white 
flags  on  the  flag-pole  over  that  house  yon- 
der, and  they  could  signal  a  junk  to  come 
in  from  the  bay  back  to  this  place,  if 
necessary.  So  it  wouldn't  hinder  us 


from  getting  the  Chinamen  all  together, 
unless  the  junk  was  too  far  out  to  see  the 
signals.  But  probably  all  are  here  wko 


"Why  have  these  men  come?"  said  one  Chinaman. 

live  here,  now.     We'd  better  begin  pretty 
soon." 

The  men  then  went  a  little  farther  and 
gazed  at  the  Chinamen  who  were  attend- 
ing to  fish.  Before  the  very  faces  of  the 
white  men  the  Chinese  kept  on  talking 
together  about  why  these  visitors  had 
come.  They  felt  safe  in  talking  their 
own  language.  They  did  not  know  that 


10 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


some  of  these  men  understood  Chinese  Chinamen.      The  white  men  were  care- 

and   knew   what   was   being   said   about  fully  looking  for  fraudulent  certificates, 
them.  Ti    watched,    for    he    was    somewhat 

"  Why  have  these  men  come?"  said  one  alarmed  by  something  he  heard  one  of  the 

Chinaman.      "  Perhaps  they  will  survey  Chinamen     say  —  that     the     men     had 

the  shore  for  some  purpose.       Do  they  brought  a  genuine  "  chock  chee "  with 

think  they  can  take  away  our  fishing-  them,  so  as  to  have  a  standard  by  which 

village?"  they  might  detect  any  forged  certificates; 

Finally,  when  the  visitors  had  walked  and  though  the  white  men  had  not  come 

around  the  camp  and  had  satisfied  them-  to  find  a  real  criminal,  but  only  to  dis- 

selves  that  all  the  men  usually  employed  cover  anybody  who  had  violated  the  law 

were  there,  one  of  them  went  to  the  Chi-  of  "  chock  chee,"  yet  they  were  so  careful 

nese  "boss"  of  the  fishing-hamlet  and  in    comparing    the    genuine    certificate 

told  him  to  call  all  the  men  together.  with  those  shown  by  the  Chinamen,  that 

"  Chock   chee,"    demanded   the   white  there  was  an  impression  made  among  the 

man;    and    immediately    the    camp    was  suspicious,  waiting  Chinese  that  perhaps, 

astir,  for  "  chock  chee  "  meant  the  cer-  after  all,  there  had  been  a  murder  com- 

tificate  a  Chinaman  must  have  to  show  mitted  by  a  Chinaman  somewhere  in  the 

that  he  had  been  legally  admitted  to  this  •  State,  and  these  men  were  looking  for  the 


country. 

Little  Ti  stood  and  looked  at  the  corn- 


murderer. 

Ti  heard  the  Chinese  about  him  mur- 


motion  that  ensued.     Some  of  the  Chi-  muring  various  conjectures  as  to  whom 

nese  hurried  to  their  bunks  and  brought  had  been  killed  and  where  it  had  oc- 

back  their  certificates.     Others  were  very  curred.     There   were   so   many   surmises 

cross  at  having  to  stop  their  work,  and  that  he  felt  frightened.      He  knew  his 

would  not  go  and  get  "  chock  chee  "  till  father  would  have  to  come  before  those 

command  after  command  had  been  given,  six  men  very  soon,  and  he  did  not  know 

"  You  all  come  here,"  said  one  white  what  the  men  might  do  to  him. 

man  in  Chinese;  and  the  Chinamen  gath-  The  little  fellow  grew  so  scared  that  he 


ered  in  a  group. 


wanted  to  run  away  and  hide  himself  in 


Then  the  six  men  began  carefully  to  the  building  that  was  used  as  a  sail  loft 

examine  the  certificates  and  compare  the  and  a  place  for  storing  the  ropes  and 

photograph  on  each  with  the  Chinaman  tackle  belonging  to  the  junk  and  other 

who  presented  it.       As  fast  as  the  men  boats.  But  he  stayed,  because  he  watched 


and  the  certificates  were  looked  at,  the 
Chinese  were  told  to  stand  aside,  so  that 


for  his  father's  turn  to  come  before  the 
white  men.     He  knew  that  some  of  the 


by   and   by   there   were   two    groups    of    Chinamen  were  out  of  temper.     One  of 


Tl: 


A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


11 

them  had  even  kicked  over  a  little  dwarf  certificates  were  missing,  went  and 
pine  that  sat  in  a  dish  by  his  hut.  But  changed  their  clothes  from  fishing  gar- 
there  was  no  use  in  being  cross  when  the  ments  to  others  more  appropriate  for  a 

visit  to  the  city.     The  other  Chinamen 


c  all  was  for  "  chock  chee." 

Ti  knew  from  his  father's  looks  that 
something  was  the  matter.  Uncle  Lum 
Lee  was  safe.  He  had  his  certificate. 

When  it  came  his  father's  turn  to  go 
before  the  six  white  men,  Ti  tried  to  see 
between  two  old  Chinamen.  He  thrust 
his  little  queued  head  under  the  China- 
man's arm  and  looked.  Before  the  white 
men  stood  his  father,  talking  briskly  in 
English  of  his  own. 

"Me  leave  '  chock  chee '  in  city,"  he 
said.  "  Him  velly  good  number  one 
6  chock  chee!'  No  have  him  here.  Leave 
him  with  my  cousin  in  city." 

"  Very  well,"  answered  one  of  the 
men.  "  Then  I  arrest  you.  I  will  take 
you  down  to  the  city,,  and  you  may  find 
'  chock  chee  '.  there  and  show  me.  Stand 
here." 

Ti's  father  did  not  object  at  all.  He 
had  known,  as  soon  as  he  heard  the  white 
men's  errand,  that  he  would  have  to  go 


went  back  to  their  work,  but  these  four 


A  Dwarf  Pine. 


came   to   the   men   on   the   net  -  drying 
platform. 


back  to  the  city  with  them.     Such  a  visit        "  You  all  sure  you  got  (  chock  chee  *  ia 
as  this   was   very  unexpected,   and   Ti's    city?"  asked  one  of  the  men. 

"Yes,"  answered  the  four  Chinamen. 
They  had  thought  the  city  a  safer  place 
to  keep  their  certificates  than  here  in  the 
fishing-hamlet.  They  looked  to  see  what 
their  captors  were  going  to  do.  The  men 
began  talking  among  themselves,  and  the 
Chinamen  waited.  During  the  long  time 


father  told  himself  that  he  would  always 
keep  his  "chock  chee"  within  reaching 
distance  hereafter. 

Three  other  men  were  in  the  same  pre- 
dicament. Little  Ti  hardly  understood. 
He  knew  that  Uncle  Lum  Lee  looked  dis- 
gusted with  his  father. 


When  the  examination  was  over,  Ti's    that  it  had  taken  to  carefully  examine 
father,  and  the  three  other  men  whose    each  one's  "chock  chee,"  the  tide  had 


12 

gone  out,  and  the  white  men  would  be 
forced  to  wait  for  its  return,  before  they 
could  start  for  the  city. 

"  Tide's  out.     Got  to  wait,"  explained 
one  of  the  men  to  the  Chinese. 


"Will  they  kill  him?"  Ti  asked. 

The  four  captives  acquiesced,  and  sat 
down  with  their  captors  on  the  net-drying 
platform.  The  sun  shone  warm  upon 
them,  and  the  men  stared  at  the  great 
nets,  and  said  something  once  in  awhile 
to  one  another.  None  of  them  knew 


TI:  A   8TOEY  OF  CHINATOWN. 

that  a  pair  of  frightened  childish  eyes 
was  watching  from  shore. 

The  other  more  fortunate  Chinamen  of 
the  hamlet  did  not  seem  to  be  much  con- 
cerned about  the  fate  of  the  four  who 
had  not  been  able  to  satisfy  the  white 
men  about  "  chock  chee."  But  Ti,  who 
understood  very  little  about  the  reason 
for  any  certificate,  could  not  bear  to  go 
away  out  of  sight  of  the  net-drying  plat- 
form where  his  father  was  —  who  knew 
what  those  white  men  were  going  to  do  to 
him? 

The  little  boy's  heart  beat  heavily  with 
fear.  He  went  behind  a  small  hut  on  the 
edge  of  the  fishing-hamlet,  and  peered 
out,  keeping  watch  of  his  father  and  the 
three  other  prisoners. 

"  I  'don't  know  what  they  do  to  my 
father!"  worried  Ti,  winking  back  the 
tears  from  his  black  eyes. 

The  men  on  the  platform  all  seemed  to 
be  waiting  for  something.  Ti  did  not 
know  what  it  was,  for  he  had  not  looked 
at  the  water  of  the  bay.  He  kept  his  eyes 
fixed  on  his  father.  He  expected  to 
see  something  dreadful  happen,  but  noth- 
ing occurred.  At  last  the  boy  came  out 
from  his  hiding  place  and  set  about  find- 
ing out  what  was  to  be. 

"  What  will  they  do  to  my  father?"  ho 
asked  one  of  the  Chinamen. 

"  Take  him  to  the  city." 

"Will  they  kill  him?"  he  questioned, 
with  a  child's  unreasoning  fear. 

The  Chinaman  shook  his  head. 

"  He  come  back,"  he  said. 


Tl:  A    STOEY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


13 


And  Ti  was  comforted.  "  Me  go,  too," 
he  thought,  with  new  inspiration. 

It  had  been  a  long  time,  about  two 
years,  since  he  had  been  to  the  city  to  see 
his  cousin,  a  boy  younger  than  himself. 
His  father  had  been  promising  to  take 
him  sometime. 

Ti  now  ran  to  the  net-drying  platform, 
and  asked  his  father's  permission.  His 
father  spoke  to  the  white  men. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  one.  "  Take  the  little 
fellow,  if  you  want  to!  But  don't  take 
him  unless  you're  sure  you've  got  e  chock 
chee '  in  city.  If  you  haven't  '  chock 
chee '  there,  you're  going  to  be  in  big- 
trouble,  and  you  don't  want  any  boy 
along!" 

"  Me  got  number  one  '  chock  chee '  in 
city,"  reiterated  Ti's  father. 

"All  right,"  said  the  white  man;  and 
Ti  ran  to  his  uncle's  wife  to  be  dressed  for 
the  journey.  His  mother  was  dead,  so 
Uncle  Lum  Lee's  wife  dressed  him. 

He  was  a  gorgeous  little  Chinaman  by 
the  time  his  best  clothes  were  on.  His 
ordinary  calico  apron  that  he  wore  over 
his  every-day  "  shorn  "  was  discarded,  and 
his  little  body  was  stuffed  out  with  many 
blouses,  worn  one  over  another  in  Chi- 
nese fashion.  His  outside  blouse  was 
bright  yellow,  and  his  trousers  were 
green.  They  were  tied  about  his  ankles, 
but  this  did  not  hide  the  fact  that  he 
wore  the  things  that  he  was  most  proud 
of,  his  new  pink  American  stockings! 

The  little  lad  was  ready  long  before 
there  was  any  need  of  it,  and  he  stood  on 


the  net-drying  platform,  a  bright  little 
figure  in  yellow  and  green  and  pink.  The 
white  men,  the  four  Chinamen,  and  Ti, 
sat  on  the  platform  and  waited  for  the 
tide.  After  a  while  one  of  the  men 
yawned  and  rubbed  his  eyes. 

"  This  '  chock  chee  '  business  is  slow/' 
he  said. 

An  old  figure  in  a  shabby  blue  shorn 
and  trousers  came  down  to  the  net-drying 
platform. 

"  Here  comes  a  real  old  Celestial,"  said 
one  white  man. 

Old  See  Yow  came  slowly  on.  He 
stopped. 

"  Kunghi,  kunghi!"  said  old  See  Yow; 
meaning,  "  I  respectfully  wish  you  joy." 

"Kunghi,  kunghi,  old  man,"  said  one 
of  the  men  good-naturedly.  "  What  can 
I  do  for  you?  Have  you  come  to  beguile 
our  weary  hours?" 

"  You  talk  Chinese,"  said  old  See  Yow 
respectfully  in  his  own  tongue.  "  Can 
you  also  read  it?" 

"  Some,"  answered  the  man. 

"Will  you  come?"  asked  See  Yow, 
beckoning.  "  I  wish  to  show  you  some- 
thing." 

The  man  rose  lazily  and  smiled.  The 
time  was  long,  and  there  were  enough 
others  to  attend  to  the  four  Chinese.  So 
he  followed  See  Yow  along  the  platform, 
off  to  the  shore,  through  the  narrow 
street,  till  they  came  to  the  old  man's 
door.  There,  pasted  up  beside  the  en- 
trance, was  the  new  red  paper  that  Ti  had 
given  him. 


14  TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 

The    old    Chinaman    pointed    to    the 
paper. 


Old  See  Yow  looked  puzzled  and  dis-. 
appointed. 


"  Can  you  read  it?"  he  asked  in  Chi- 
nese. 

The  man  looked  at  the  red  placard.  He 
studied  it  a  little  and  then  he  nodded. 

"You  no  read  it?"  he  asked. 

See  Yow  nodded.  "  I  read,"  he  said, 
"  but  the  center  of  my  heart  does  not  un- 
derstand. What  is  it  the  words  say?" 

The  man  read  it:  "  Come  unto  me,  all 
ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I 
will  give  you  rest." 

"You  no  sabe  that?"  he  asked. 

See  Yow  shook  his  head.  No,  he  did 
not  understand. 

Somewhere  in  the  depths  of  the 
visitor's  memory  something  stirred.  He 
remembered  a  boyhood  when  his  mother 
read  such  verses.  He  remembered  when 
he,  too,  read  them.  Little  had  he  read 
such  words  in  the  years  of  manhood,  but 
he  knew  what  that  red  paper  meant. 
Yes,  he  knew.  He  hesitated.  He  was 
glad  his  companions  were  not  present  to 
listen  to  his  explanation. 

"  Jesus  Christ  said  that,"  he  explained 
in  Chinese.  "You  know  Jesus  Christ?" 

See  Yow  shook  his  head.  He  did  not 
know  anything  about  Jesus  Christ. 

The  man  stood  and  looked  at  the 
paper. 

"Where  did  you  get  it?"  he  asked. 

See  Yow  explained. 

The  other  laughed  a  little. 

"Very  good  paper,"  he  said,  and 
turned  away. 


"  What  is  it  the  words  say?'7  he  asked 
anxiously  in  Chinese.  "What  is  it  they 
say?" 

But  the  man  was  walking  down  the  nar- 
row street.  He  did  not  care  to  talk  about 
the  words  any  more. 

See  Yow  stood  and  looked  at  the  red 
paper  in  a  distressed  way.  Something  in 
his  heart  cried  out  for  the  meaning  of 
those  words,  but  there  was  nobody  to  tell 
him  what  they  meant. 

"  They  are  new  words,"  he  re- 
peated despairingly.  "  They  are  new 
words." 

There  was  a  puzzled  wistfulness  in  the 
old  eyes.  The  strange  man  had  said  that 
it  was  a  "  very  good  paper."  See  Yow 
gazed  at  the  paper  respectfully.  He 
would  keep  it  there.  Perhaps  it  was  a 
charm  to  ward  off  evil  spirits,  as  pieces  of 
embroidered  silk  may  keep  evil  spirits 
away,  if  the  silk  is  hung  near  a  bed. 

Meantime  the  stranger  had  gone  back 
to  the  net-drying  platform.  The  men  he 
had  left  there  were  talking  together.  One 
of  them  looked  up. 

"What  did  your  old  Chinaman  take 
you  off  to  see?"  he  asked  laughingly. 

"Just  a  paper,"  answered  the  other,  as 
he  walked  down  to  the  end  of  the  plat- 
form, and  stood  alone  a  few  minutes, 
looking  out  at  the  slow-coming  tide. 

"  I  didn't  come  down  here  to  preach  a 
sermon!"  he  told  himself  uneasily,  trying 
to  forget  how  old  See  Yow's  face  had 


'II:  A    STOKY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


15 


looked.  "  '  ("hock  chee  '  is  more  in  my 
line.  I  wish  that  tide  would  hurry!'' 

He  looked  off  at  the  distant  horizon. 
Perhaps  he  saw  something  there  besides 
low-lying  haze.  Perhaps  he  saw  a  little 
boy  beside  his  mother's  knee.  Perhaps, 
too,  he  heard  something  besides  the  indis- 
tinct sound  of  conversation  behind  him 
and  the  cry  of  sea-gulls.  Perhaps  ho 
heard  that  mother's  voice  reading  out  of 
an  old  Book.  Presently  he  turned  and 
went  back  to  the  others.  By  and  by  the 
tide  came  up,  and  the  men  and  the  four 
Chinese  went  off  together  with  Ti.  After 
a  while  the  little  Chinese  fishing-hamlet 
faded,  and  Ti  could  see  it  no  more. 

It  was  wonderful  to  the  little  boy  to  be 
really  going  to  the  city!  He  stood  on  the 
boat  and  looked  out  at  the  sparkling, 
ruffled  water.  On  and  on  they  went,  and 
he  saw  a  sea-gull,  and  the  wind  blew 
brisk  and  salt,  and  he  laughed  at  the 
spray  that  flew  in  his  face.  And  then, 
after  they  had  been  sailing  quite  a  time, 
he  lifted  his  eyes  and  saw  in  the  distance 
the  smoke  of  an  American  steamboat.  He 
was  delighted.  It  was  only  a  foretaste  of 
the  wonderful  things  he  was  going  to  see, 
he  knew.  He  was  going  to  the  city! 

But  little  Ti  did  not  know  what  things 
should  befall  him  there,  and  that  he 
would  not  see  the  Chinese  fishing-hamlet 
again  for  two  whole  years.  Perhaps,  if 
he  had  known,  he  would  have  turned  and 
looked  once  more  in  the  direction  in 
which  the  fishing-hamlet  lay. 

But  he  did  not  think  of  such  a  thins  as 


his  staying  away  more  than  a  few  days. 
He  stood  looking  at  the  smoke  of  the 
American  steamboat,  and  the  wind  blew 
his  pink-plaited  little  queue  over  his 
shoulder,  and  the  spray  lit  on  his  bright 
yellow  "  shorn  "  and  green  trousers,  and 
his  almond  eyes  took  in  everything. 

"You're  a  regular  little  sailor,"  said 
one  of  the  men  in  English. 

But  Ti  did  not  understand.  He  knew 
only  a  very  little  English,  for  he  had  not 
had  anybody  to  talk  that  language  with  at 
the  fishing-hamlet,  and  he  had  forgotten 
many  words  he  once  had  known  when  he 
lived  in  the  city  as  a  very  little  boy.  Be- 
sides, he  did  not  want  to  talk  now.  He 
was  going  to  the  great  city,  and  he  was  so 
happy! 

But,  alas!  back  in  the  Chinese  fishing- 
hamlet,  old  See  Yow  went-  to  and  fro,  as 
ignorant  and  unsatisfied  as  ever.  The 
"  center  of  his  heart "  was  yet  wistfully 
longing  for  something,  he  knew  not  what. 
The  "  very  good  paper  "  with  its  message 
was  not  understood.  Alas,  that  "chock 
chee  "  had  been  more  in  the  white  man's 
line! 


CHAPTER  III. 

KWONG  GOON. 

HE  city  reached,  Ti's  father 
found  his  certificate  and 
made  his  peace  with  the 
"  chock  chee  "  men.  Then 
the  two  went  to  Ti's 
uncle's,  and  the  boy  was  happy  with  his 


16 


TI:  A   STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


little  cousins  in  the  small  rooms  above 
and  back  of  the  uncle's  store,  that  was 
hung  with  gay  Chinese  lanterns,  and  had 
shelves  and  cases  filled  with  Chinese  dolls, 
and  rice  paper  pictures,  and  little  storks 
and  frogs,  and  beautifully  made  boxes, 
and  white  silk  handkerchiefs  such  as 
Americans  buy. 

It  was  a  great  change  for  Ti,  coming 


baby  Hop,  who  was  now  two  years  old> 
but  whom  Ti  had  never  before  seen.  And 
then  Aunt  Ah  Cheng  told  him  how  nice  a 
birthday  feast  they  had  had  for  baby  Hop 
when  he  was  four  weeks  old.  Chinese 
babies  have  a  feast  when  they  are  four 
weeks  of  age.  The  other  cousin,  Hop's 
brother  Whan,  was  five  years  old. 

Ti  went  to  the  little  front  balcony  and 


from  his  little  fishing-hamlet  to  this  great 
city.  His  aunt,  Ah  Cheng,  was  glad  to 
see  him,  and  she  began  to  cook  some  meat 
in  Chinese  cooking  oil  for  the  visitors. 
She  turned  the  meat  with  a  couple  of  red 
chopsticks  while  it  was  cooking,  and  into 
a  kettle  that  contained  some  more  cook- 
ing oil  she  threw  the  wet  leaves  of  some 
vegetable.  The  leaves,  beginning  to 
cook,  made  a  great  spluttering  in  the  hot 
oil  on  top  of  the  charcoal  range,  and  Ti 
thought  how  good  dinner  would  be. 

His  aunt,  Ah  Cheng,  was  very  pleasant, 
and  told  him  he  ought  to  have  come  to 
the  city  before,  to  visit  his  little  cousin, 


looked  out.  Across  the  street  he  could 
see  a  Chinaman  standing  behind  a  small 
table  set  on  the  sidewalk.  The  table  had 
a  red,  black-stained  cover,  and  the  man 
\vas  a  fortune-teller. 

On  a  farther  building  were  two  enor- 
mous red  and  green  lanterns.  All  of  the 
people  who  lived  along  here  were  Chinese. 
Over  at  the  corner  was  a  Chinese 
butcher's  shop,  where  pork  and  vegetables 
were  for  sale.  One  shallow,  round  basket 
on  the  sidewalk  contained  a  quantity  of 
white,  dry  watermelon  seeds,  such  as  the 
Chinese  eat.  Another  basket  held  beans 
that  had  been  made  to  sprout  and  put 


Tl:  A    STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


17 


forth  runners  about  two  inches  long.  The 
runners  and  beans  were  alike  very  pale 
and  were  tender  for  eating. 

Ti  turned  around  and  looked  at  the 
room  in  which  he  was  standing.  The 
outer  room,  in  which  his  aunt 
was  cooking,  was  one  used 
in  common  for  that  purpose 
by  other  Chinese  families  liv-' 
ing  in  this  house,  but  the  little 
room  Ti  stood  in  was  exclu- 
sively- that  of  Aunt  Cheng's 
family.  The  little  boy  gazed 
at  its  furnishings.  There  was 
a  shelf  for  the  household  gods, 
and  there  was  a  table  with 
candles  and  incense  -  sticks. 
There  were  several  stools,  and 
a  picture  of  the  Chinese  god- 
dess of  mercy,  Kun  Yam, 
the  goddess  that  is  so  much 
worshiped  by  all  Chinese 
women  and  girls,  whether  in 
China  or  America. 

There  was  a  bed  made  of 
boards,  covered  with  a  square 
of  matting.     Around  the  bed 
were   some   curtains,   fastened 
with  loops  of  Chinese  money, 
"  cash,"   and   beside  the   cur- 
tains   hung    pieces    of    em- 
broidered silk  of  different  colors.     These 
silken   pieces   were   charms   against   evil 
spirits.     Poor  as  the  room  was,  it  seemed 
beautiful  to  Ti,  who  had  come  so  recently 
from  his  fishing- village. 

He  went  back  to  the  room  where  his 


aunt  was  cooking.  Other  women  of  dif- 
ferent families  were  here  now,  and  there 
was  one  quarrelsome  woman  among 
them.  He  did  not  like  it  so  well  as  when 
his  aunt  was  there  alone,  but  his  little 


Chinese  Fortune-teller's  Table. 

cousin,  Whan,  was  ready  to  run  down 
into  the  store  with  him,  so  together  the 
two  somewhat  unacquainted  cousins  went 
below  and  peeped  out  the  store  door  at 
the  old  Chinese  fortune-teller  and  his  red 
covered  table,  farther  down  across  the 


18 

street.  It  did  not  seem  to  be  a  very  good 
day  for  the  fortune-teller.  He  stood  there 
without  any  customers. 

"  But  it  is  not  so  every  day,"  said  little 

CHINESE  MUSICAL  INSTRUMENTS. 


Yec  Yin. 


Yet  Com. 


Wong  Sev 


Tai  Com. 


Whan  in  Chinese  to  Ti.     "He  is  very 
wise,  and  people  go  to  him.     Is  there  a 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 

fortune-teller  at  the  fishing  place  where 
you  live?" 

"No,"  said  Ti,  who  was  greatly  im- 
pressed by  the  wonders  of  the  city. 

The  two  children  stepped  out  on  the 
street.  Here  and  there  were  other  Chi- 
nese children,  some  with  their  parents, 
some  alone  on  errands.  There  were  many 
Chinamen  going  back  and  forth.  Some, 
who  had  been  to  the  butcher's,  carried 
little  cornucopias  of  brown  paper  contain- 
ing small  quantities  of  meat.  Most  such 
Chinese  people  had  very  little  quantities 
of  vegetables,  too.  There  was  a  queer 
sound  of  music  in  the  air.  That  is,  the 
music  would  have  been  strange  in  Ameri- 
can ears.  Some  one  in  the  upper  story 
of  an  opposite  building  was  playing  a 
stringed  musical  instrument. 

Ti  stood  and  looked  over  at  the  unfor- 
tunate fortune-teller.  But  he  did  not 
seem  to  be  much  depressed  by  his  lack  of 
customers,  and  there  was  so  much  else  to 
see  and  hear  that  Ti  forgot  about  him. 
The  stringed  instrument  had  been  joined 
by  other  Chinese  musical  instruments, 
and  the  little  boy  stared  up  at  the  higher 
window  opposite  and  listened.  But  his 
cousin  Whan  did  not  like  this.  He  pulled 
Ti  farther  on  the  street. 

"  Come  and  see,"  said  he,  bent  on  show- 
ing his  country  cousin  the  sights. 

But  Ti  would  listen  for  a  minute  or 
two.  He  thought  the  music  was  very 
fine,  though  it  was  squeaky.  But  soon  the 
squeaking  instruments  were  aided  by  a 
much  more  powerful  one,  for  some  other 


Tl:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


19 


player  joined  in  with  a  loud  sound  of 
metal  beaten,  as  of  a  kettle-drum. 

Ti  saw  an  old  Chinaman  sitting  on  a 
box  on  the  sidewalk. 
He  had  another  little 
box  before  him,  and  he 
was  an  opium  pipe 
mender.  He  was  busy 
mending  and  cleaning 
part  of  such  a  pipe — • 
jin-ten  —  now. 

Around  the  corner 
sat  a  Chinese  cobbler, 
working  on  the  street. 
He  held  a  blue,  thick- 
soled  Chinese  shoe,  and 
hummed  a  funny  little 
song.  There  were  some 
pieces  of  leather  soak- 
ing in  a  small  tub  be- 
side him,  and  on  the 
side  of  the  box  before 
him  there  was  a  red 
paper  with  Chinese 

characters.  The  cobbler 

• 

had  a  board  put  up  at 
one  side  of  his  open-air 
shop,  and  he  looked  at 
Ti  and  little  Whan  in  a 
friendly  way. 

Ti  gazed  into  a  Chi- 
nese barber  shop,  and 
saw  the  barber  shaving  a  customer's  head. 
The  customer  held  up  a  little  tin  box,  and 
every  time  the  barber  clipped  off  any  hair, 
he  dropped  it  into  this  tin.  Another 
barber  was  cleaning  out  the  interior  of  a, 


customer's  ear  with  a  little  black  instru- 
ment. 

Not  i'ar  oil  was  a  Chinese  druggist's 


Chinese  Cobbler. 

shop.  In  the  window  were  two  bottles  of 
"  horned  toads  "  in  alcohol,  and,  peering 
into  the  store,  Ti  saw  a  Chinaman  sitting, 
working  the  handle  of  a  machine  up  and 
down.  He  seemed  to  be  cutting  roots  to 


20 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


pieces,  and  the  machine  appeared  to  work 
somewhat  as  a  machine  for  thinly  slicing 
dried  beef  does  in  an  American  grocery 
store. 

The  two  boys  went  on  to  a  Chinese 
vegetable  shop,  where  some  yellow  squares 
of  bean  curd  were  piled  for  sale.  Each 
square  of  curd  was  marked  with  a  Chi- 
nese character,  and  the  curds  were  notice- 
able on  account  of  their  yellow  color. 


Chinese  manner  of  carrying  wood  in  San  Francisco. 

Long  pieces  of  sugar  cane,  brought  from 
China,  stood  up  against  the  side  of  the 
building,    like    so    many    fishing    poles    gilded  teeth  swinging  in  the  balcony  be- 
There  were  cut    fore  the  house!    He  gazed  with  horror  at 


and  Whan  looked  at  this  scribe's  writing 
with  great  respect.  In  a  few  minutes  the 
letter  was  written,  the  coolie  paid  the 
scribe  and  went  away. 

"  We  must  go  home,"  said  little  Whan 
in  Chinese  to  Ti.  "  My  mother  will  have 
cooked  the  dinner."  ' 

They  turned  around  and  went  back 
toward  Whan's  father's  store.  The  two 
children  looked  again  at  the  vegetable 
shop  as  they  went  by  it,  and  Whan  said 
that  once  the  Chinese  vegetable  seller 
had  given  him  a  piece  of  sugar  cane  to 
eat.  Both  boys  would  have  liked  some 
sugar  cane.  They  looked  at  the  vegetable 
man's  little  boy,  and  lingered  near  his 
shop  a  minute,  but  the  vegetable  seller 
was  too  busy  to  notice. 

Ti  turned  away.  He  peeped  into  an- 
other street,  and  beheld  a  sight  that  hor- 
rified him  —  a  house  with  five  great 


or  pieces  of  bamboo. 

pieces   of  sugar  cane,   too,   about   seven 

inches  long,  for  sale,  two  pieces  for  five 

cents, 

Ti  gazed  at  a  cage  of  turtles  slowly 
crawling  about  their  prison.  There  were 
some  big  crabs,  too,  in  a  receptacle,  one 
lying  on  his  back.  The  crabs  made  Ti 
feel  more  at  home.  He  had  seen  so  many 
of  them  at  the  fishing  village. 

Xear  by  was  a  Chinese  shop  for  dried 
fish.  Here  on  a  corner  was  an  old  scribe, 
writing  a  letter  for  a  Chinese  coolie.  He 
wrote  with  a  brush  that  he  held  upright 


those  big  teeth.  He  had  never  before 
known  about  Chinese  dentists,  and  those 
swinging,  monstrous  teeth  filled  him  with 
fearful  conjectures  of  what  was  done  in 
that  house.  He  turned  and  ran. 

Little  Whan  could  not  imagine  what 
had  frightened  his  cousin  so.  He  ran 
after,  calling.  Ti  ran  in  the  wrong  direc- 
tion, not  toward  his  uncle's  store,  and 
nearly  plunged  down  the  stairs  into  a  cel- 
lar below  the  sidewalk,  where  wood  was 
for  sale  by  Chinamen.  Looking  down 
the  stairs,  the  passers  could  see  the  wood 


and  moved  mostly  by  his  little  finger.     Ti    tied    in    little    bundles    for    purchasers. 


Tl:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


21 


There  was  a  bright  new  axe  visible  in  the 
cellar.      A    Chinaman    came    along    the 


street,  carrying  an  amount  of  wood  at 


wood  were  not  in  baskets,  but  were  kept 
in  place  at  each  end  of  the  pole  by  a  Chi- 
nese contrivance. 

Whan  caught  up  with  Ti,  and,  grasping 
his  shoulder,  said,  "You  go  the  wrong 
way.       Why     did    you 
run?" 

But  Ti  would  not  tell 
for  he  was  already  a  little 
ashamed   to    have    been 
frightened  over  the  big 
swinging  teeth.     He  felt 
as  if  he  were  an  ignorant 
little  country  Chinaman. 
No   doubt   small   Whan, 
five  years  old,  had  often 
seen  that  house 
with  the  teeth, 
and     was    not 
scared;  and  here 
was  he,  Ti,  a 
boy  eight  years 
old,     afraid    of 
something    that 
did   not   terrify 
his  little  cousin! 
So    Whan    did 
not  get  any  an- 
swer to  his  ques- 
tion. 

But  it  was  time  for  dinner,  and  Ti  was 
quite  ready  to  run  home.  The  boys  had 
dinner  together,  without  any  sugar  cane, 
but  Ti  did  not  care.  The  Chinese  greens 


each  end  of  a  pole  hung  across  his  shoul-    and  the  meat  tasted  very  good,  and  he  ate 

der,  as  a  Chinese  vegetable  peddler  carries    rice,  too. 

his  baskets,  except  that  the  two  piles  of        Ti's  father  thought  that  he  and  his 


22 


little  boy  would  stay  a  few  days  and  visit. 
It  was  the  time  of  the  feast  of  Kwong 
Goon,  that  heathen  deity  who,  the  Chi- 
nese believe,  has  much  to  do  with  the 
dead.  Ti's  father  had  thought  of  its  be- 
ing the  time  of  the  feast,  and  he  had  been 
all  the  more  willing  to  come  down  to  the 
city  with  the  "  chock  chee  "  men. 

The  next  day  after  arriving  in  the  city, 
Ti  and  his  father,  and  little  cousin  Whan 
and  the  uncle,  went  to  a  joss-house  to  see 
and  to  carry  gifts  for  the  festival.  Those 
Chinese  who  had  relatives  that  had  died 
since  the  last  Kwong  Goon  festival, 
brought  prayer  papers  and  joss  sticks  to 
the  altar.  Candy,  tea,  cigars  and  dried 
fish  were  laid  before  Kwong  Goon. 
Well  might  the  Chinese  fear  him,  accord- 
ing to  their  religious  belief,  for  he  is  the 
deity  who  is  supposed  to  devour  the  bodies 
of  irreligious  Chinamen. 

Much  money  had  been  spent  on  this 
festival.  Little  Ti,  looking  at  the  altar  of 
Kwong  Goon,  saw  it  resplendent  with  can- 
dles and  gilt  censers.  The  gilded  altar 
pieces  were  imported  ones,  and  in  this 
joss-house  in  the  Chinese  part  of  an 
American  city,  the  Chinese  high  priest  in- 
toned the  services  for  the  souls  of  dead 
Chinamen. 

Ti  and  his  folks  were  near  the  shrine. 
If  this  had  not  been  so,  perhaps  something 
would  not  have  happened.  As  it  was, 
five-year-old  Whan  came  to  great  grief. 
Notwithstanding  the  holiness  of  the  altar, 
the  Chinese  men  occasionally  took  cigars 
from  a  tray  that  lay  before  the  shrine. 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 

Seeing  this,  little  Whan  reached  out  his 
tiny  yellow  hand  and  helped  himself  to  a 
piece  of  dried  fish  that  had  been  offered  to 
Kwong  Goon. 

Woe  to  little  Whan!  What  a  crime  was 
this!  The  Chinese  women  who  were  about 
him  pounced  down  on  the  little  boy  and 
nearly  choked  him,  trying  to  get  that 
piece  of  fish,  for  he  had  put  it  into  his 
mouth,  and  the  women  were  determined 
to  get  the  fish  before  he  could  swallow  it. 
They  forced  his  mouth  open.  One  woman 
had  her  bony  fingers  tightly  around  his 
throat.  Another  had  seized  the  end  of 
the  piece  of  fish.  Whan  struggled  and 
gasped.  Ti  looked  on  in  alarm,  lest  his  lit- 
tle cousin  should  be  choked.  But  the 
women  got  the  fish. 

The  tumult  subsided.  Great  Kwong 
Goon  was  honored  by  an  offering  of  punk 
sticks,  and  little  Whan,  the  beginner  of 
this  confusion,  offended  against  the  pro- 
prieties of  the  occasion  no  more.  Per- 
haps what  he  had  done  would  have  been 
forgotten,  had  not  something  happened  to 
him  within  the  next  few  days,  something 
that  his  parents  regarded  as  the  result  of 
Whan's  act  at  the  Kwong  Goon  festival. 

What  happened  was  this.  The  festival 
continued  through  the  week,  and  Ti  and 
his  father  stayed,  for  the  father  had  some 
matters  he  wanted  to  attend  to  in  the 
city.  Now,  about  five  days  after  his  visit 
to  the  shrine  of  Kwong  Goon,  little  Whan 
was  taken  ill.  He  was  languid  and 
slightly  feverish.  He  could  not  swallow 
his  rice  without  pain  and  difficulty. 


21:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


23 


"It  is  because  you  tried  to  eat  a  piece 
of  the  fish  belonging  to  Kwong  Goon," 
said  his  mother.  "  This  is  your  punish- 
ment/' 

Little  W  h  a  n , 
Mho  felt  very  mis- 
erable, supposed 
that  what  his  su- 
perstitious mother 
said  was  true,  lie 
did  not  know  that 
he  ha  d  been  ex- 
posed t  o  diph- 
theria, and  that  he 
w  o  u  1  d  probably 
have  had  the  dis- 
ease anyway,  if  he  had  not  gone 
to  the  festival.  He  resolved 
that  he  would  never  offend 
Kwong  Goon  again. 

Whan  felt  no  better  after  his 
resolve,  however,  and  his  father 
thought  that  the  disease  must 
be  produced  by  some  angry 
spirit.  So  that  night  the  father 
went  outside  the  store  with 
some  pieces  of  Chinese  money 
and  a  bowl  of  rice,  and  after 
prostrating  himself  several 
times  before  the  invisible  evil 
spirit,  he  threw  the  money  and 
the  rice  at  the  place  where  he  supposed 
the  evil  spirit  to  be.  Then  he  went  back 
into  the  house. 

"You  will  be  well  now,"  he  told 
Whan.  "  Lii;tsu,  the  medicine  god,  who 
pities  the  sick,  will  help  you." 


But  Whan  was  not  well.  Seeing  this, 
his  father  made  up  his  mind  to  go  to  a 
Chinese  drug  store,  although  he  would  not 


The  Vegetable  Man's  Little  Boy. 

stay  there  for  any  other  business  than 
that  pertaining  to  the  place,  for  fear  that 
the  evil  spirits  that  produce  sickness 
might  be  lurking  among  the  medicines. 
So,  having  seen  the  sign  in  Chinese,  "  Bad 
Spirits  Not  Admitted,"  he  got  Whan  some 


24 


TI:  A    STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


medicine  from  the  "Hall  of  Joyful  Be- 
lief," as  the  Chinese  characters  on  the 
apothecary's  shop  denoted  it  to  be.  But 
the  "  Hall  of  Joyful  Belief  "  did  not  help 
the  little  boy,  so  his  father  got  some  medi- 
cine from  the  "  Promise  Life  Palace," 
and  the  "Hall  for  Multiplying  Years," 
and  the  "  Great  Life  Hall,"  and  from  a 
place  where  the  board  read  in  Chinese, 
"Wo  Ki  Ying  feels  the  pulse  and  writes 
prescriptions  'for  internal  and  external 
disease."  Moreover  the  father  consulted 
one  of  the  Chinese  fortune-tellers,  who 
looked  at  the  sick  child's  nose  and  said  it 
was  like  a  dog's,  and  for  that  reason 
Whan  would  live  long.  According  to 
this  fortune-teller's  rule,  "  A  man  with  a 
dog's  nose  will  live  long." 

Moreover,  the  friendly  Chinese  butcher, 
who  had  recently  come  from  China,  gave 
Ti's  father  a  cow's  tooth  which  had  been 
found  in  a  field  near  Swatow,  and  which, 
the  butcher  said,  if  brought  into  a  dwell- 
ing and  put  on  the  shelf  of  the  gods, 
would  keep  demons  from  entering. 

With  all  this,  little  Whan  did  not  seem 
to  get  better. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

LITTLE  WHAN. 

TIRING  Whan's  sickness  the 
other  children  were  not 
kept  away  from  him.  It 
was  not  the  Chinese  custom 
to  do  that. 
When  the  teacher  —  who  was  not  the 


person  who  had  sent  the  paper  to  the  fish- 
ing camp,  but  another  teacher  —  came 
through  the  district  and  saw  little  Whan, 
she  knew  that  something  serious  was  the 
matter.  She  said  to  his  father,  "Your 
boy  is  sick.  You  should  get  an  Ameri- 
can doctor." 

"  It  is  Kwong  Goon  who  makes  Whan 
sick,"  said  Ah  Cheng,  the  child's  mother. 
"  Kwong  Goon  will  punish  him  for  taking 
the  fish!  His  throat  is  sick." 

But  the  father  did  as  the  teacher  said. 
He  sent  for  an  American  doctor. 

"Your  boy  has  diphtheria,"  said  the 
doctor,  as  he  looked  at  little  Whan. 
"  That's  what  ails  him." 

The  doctor  told  the  father  to  keep  the 
sick  boy  in  a  room  separate  from  the 
other  children. 

"Yes,"  said  the  father  stupidly,  and 
he  looked  at  the  doctor  and  wondered  if, 
after  all,  it  would  not  have  been  mucli 
better  to  have  gone  again  to  the  "  Hall 
of  Joyful  Relief  "  and  got  some  more  Chi- 
nese medicine,  than  to  have  called  this 
American  doctor.  For  what  was  the 
reason  why  Whan  should  be  shut  up  in  a 
room  by  himself?  Would  not  the  evil 
spirits  that  make  sickness  come  to  him? 
What  a  singular  thing! 

The  father  looked  suspiciously  at  the 
doctor  and  his  medicine.  It  was  Kwong 
Goon  who  had  made  Whan  ill,  no  doubt. 
and  was  it  likely  that  putting  the  boy  off 
in  a  room  by  himself  would  cure  him? 
What  did  this  American  doctor  know 
about  Kwong  Goon,  anyhow? 


Tl:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN.  25 

The  doctor  saw  the  father's  distrustful  the  midst  of  the  work,  the  three  children 
look,  and  tried  to  explain  as  best  he  could  all  were  together  again.  There  was  noth- 
in  English.  ing  before  the  doorways  of  the  rooms, 

"  Do  you  not  see?"  asked 
he.  "  If  your  boy  has  diph- 
theria, your  baby  might 
take  it.  and  so  might  the 
cousin  from  the  country. 
You  must  keep  Whan  in  a 
room  by  himself." 

"Yes,"  said  the  father. 
"  Yes." 

"  Be  sure  to  do  it,"  reit- 
erated the  doctor. 

"Yes,"  said  the  father; 
and,  after  the  doctor  had 
gone,  he  told  his  wife,  who 
had  not  seen  the  doctor,  for 
he  had  not  been  allowed  to 
come  to  the  living-room 
upstairs,  but  only  to  enter 
the  store. 

But  the  next  day,  when 
the  teacher  came  back,  she 
found  that  Whan's  mother 
had  not  done  as  the  doctor 
said.  She  meant  to  do  the 
best  for  her  children,  poor 
Ah  Cheng!  but  she  did  not 
understand  about  infection. 

"  You  must  put  Whan  in 
a  different  room,  away  from 
the    other    children,"    said 
the  teacher  kindly,  and  she  showed  the    anyhow,   except  thin   red   curtains.      Ti 
mother  how.  and  Hop  wanted  to  be  with  Whan  con- 

Wlian  stayed  separate  till  after  the  stantly,  and  the  mother  thought  that 
teacher  went  away.  Then,  somehow,  in  keeping  the  sick  child  separate  was  only 


Chinese  Festival  of  Kwong  Goon. 


26 


TJ:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


an  American  notion,  anyway,  and  not  of 
much  importance.  It  seemed  too  bad  to 
separate  the  children,  when  they  liked  one 
another  so  well.  In  pure  kindness,  Ah 
Cheng  allowed  the  three  to  be  together. 

Toward  evening  the  teacher  came 
again.  She  was  alarmed  over  Whan,  and 
stayed  to  watch  by  him,  but  the  ignorant 
mother  slept.  In  the  morning  the  father 
and  mother  were  frightened  about  the 
sick  child,  for  they  saw  how  very  much 
worse  he  was.  They  lighted  tapers  and 
burned  incense,  hoping  to  make  him  bet- 
ter, and  to  appease  the  evil  spirit  that 
they  felt  sure  was  tormenting  him. 
Diphtheria  is  common  enough  in  China, 
sometimes. 

But  Whan  grew  worse.  He  could  not 
drink  without  strangling.  He  did  not 
wish  to  eat. 

By  this  time,  two-year-old  Hop  and  his 
cousin  Ti  were  both  taken  with  the  same 
disease,  diphtheria. 

"It  is  Kwong  Goon  who  does  this," 
still  said  Whan's  mother.  "  It  is  the  god 
Kwong  Goon." 

But  little  five-year-old  Whan  was  dying, 
though  his  mother  did  not  realize  it. 

The  teacher,  who  had  been  obliged  to 
go  herself  for  the  American  doctor  and 
had  not  found  him  in,  hurried  now  from 
the  street  into  the  narrow  alley.  Around 
it  stood  Chinamen  as  usual,  talking.  A 
Chinese  woman  with  ankle  ornaments 
like  bracelets  went  into  a  doorway.  The 
teacher  nodded  to  the  woman  and  hurried 
on.  All  these  Chinese  were  used  to  see- 


ing the  teacher  now,  and  they  did  not 
watch  her  suspiciously,  as  they  had  once 
done.  They  knew,  now,  that  she  was 
friendly,  and  she  could  talk  their  tongue. 

The  teacher  hastened  up  the  long  out- 
side narrow  stairs  that  led  to  the  rooms 
where  Ti's  aunt  lived.  A  door  at  the  top 
of  the  stairway  had  some  Chinese  char- 
acters on  it.  She  rapped,  said  something 
in  Chinese,  and  entered  without  waiting. 

Directly  in  front  of  her,  in  the  tiny, 
box-like  entry,  was  what  would  look  to 
American  eyes  like  a  large,  rectangular 
tin  for  ashes.  There  were  ashes  in  the 
tin,  but  there  was  a  red  paper  on  the  wall 
above,  and  this  was  a  place  for  worship  of 
the  gods. 

The  teacher  did  not  stop  an  instant. 
She  hurried  through  the  narrow  passage 
at  the  left.  The  passage  was  cut  with 
several  doors,  hung  with  thin  red  cur- 
tains. A  person  could  readily  enter  any 
room,  but  the  teacher  hastened  to  the  one 
where  Ti  and  Whan  and  Hop  were.  She 
had  not  meant  to  be  away  so  long. 

But  she  knew,  now,  before  she  entered 
the  room,  that  One  had  been  there  before 
her.  He  who  loves  the  children  had 
looked  not  only  upon  little  Whan  in  his 
pain  and  suffering,  but  on  baby  Hop,  and 
was  taking  them  to  himself.  The  teacher 
heard  wailing  before  she  lifted  the  thin 
red  curtain  of  the  room.  Little  Whan 
was  dead.  The  dreadful  diphtheria  had 
done  its  work,  and  when  the  teacher  took 
baby  Hop  into  her  arms,  she  believed  that 
the  child  would  follow  his  brother  soon. 


TI:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


27 


The  teacher  did  all  she  could.  The 
American  doctor  came  at  last,  but  it  was 
too  late.  In  those  last  dreadful  moments 


Whan's  Mother, 

of  baby  Hop's  life,  his  mother,  poor  Ah 
Cheng,  prostrated  herself  before  the  old 
picture  of  the  goddess  of  mercy,  and 
prayed  and  sobbed. 

"  Oh,  save  my  baby!  Save  my  baby!" 
she  sobbed  wildly  in  Chinese.  "  Oh,  Kun 
Yam,  goddess  of  mercy,  save  my  baby!" 

The    teacher's    tears    ran    down    her 


cheeks,  as  she  saw  the  heart  agony  with 
which  poor  Ah  Cheng  sobbed  and  wrung 
her  hands  and  prayed  before  that  picture. 
But  the  dear  little  two-years-old  baby  in 
the  teacher's  arms  drew  a  last,  faint  gasp, 
and  the  teacher  saw  with  reverent  awe 
the  seal  of  death  set  itself  on  the  baby 
face. 

She  laid  down  the  little  body  and 
put  the  chubby  brown  hands  gently 
together,  and  then  went  softly  across 
the  room,  and  knelt  beside  the  poor 
wailing  mother. 

Ah  Cheng  lifted  up  her  drawn, 
agonized  face,  and  looked  toward  her 
child.  As  she  realized  what  had  hap- 
pened, a  cry  of  despair  broke  from  her 


Whan. 


lips.     She  flung  herself  wildly  down,  and 
beat  her  head  against  the  floor. 


28 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


"Kim  Yam!  Kun  Yam!"  she  wailed. 
"  I  shall  never  see  them  again!  Both  my 
sons  are  dead,  and  I  shall  never  see  them 
again!  Kun  Yam!  Kim  Yam!" 

"Poor  Ah  Cheng!  I  am  so  sorry  for 
you,"  said  the  teacher,  slipping  her  arm 
around  Ah  Cheng  and  drawing  her  head 
down  until  it  rested  upon  her  shoulder. 
"  I  am  so  sorry  for  you,  and  there  is  One 
who  is  more  sorry  for  you  than  anybody 
else  can  be,  for  He  is  here  and  knows  our 
sorrow.  It  is  Jesus,  Ah  Cheng,  Jesus, 
who  loves  the  children.  Your  children 
are  with  him  and  he  will  keep  them  safe. 
And,  Ah  Cheng,  he  loves  you,  too,  and 
wants  to  comfort  you." 

Ah  Cheng's  sobbing  grew  a  little 
quieter. 

"  You  cry  out  to  Kun  Yam,  Ah  Cheng, 
because  your  heart  must  have  help  in  this 
trouble;  and  Jesus  is  listening  to  every 
cry,  and  he  can  help  you.  He  has  taken 
the  little  ones  to  himself.  Some  day  he 
will  restore  them  to  you,  if  you  trust  him 
and  open  your  heart  to  his  love,  believing 
in  him  as  your  best  Friend." 

Then  very  lovingly  and  patiently  did 
the  teacher  try  to  explain  to  the  stricken 
mother  that  this  Jesus  is  the  one  true 
God,  and  that  he  is  close  to  us,  though 
our  eyes  cannot  see  him. 

The  night  that  baby  Hop  died,  Ti  was 
too  ill  to  know  it.  He  did  not  compre- 
hend the  wailing.  It  had  been  a  confused 
outburst  of  sound  without  any  meaning 
to  him,  as  he  half  dozed  on  his  bunk.  As 
feverish  Ti  lay  there  the  next  day,  how- 


ever, he  looked  continually  at  the  teacher. 
Sometimes  he  seemed  to  himself  to  know 
her.  Other  times  he  .thought  he  did  not. 
There  was  an  odor  of  much  burning  in- 
cense in  the  air.  He  felt  very  strangely. 
He  wished  he  were  back  in  the  fishing  vil- 
lage with  his  father  and  old  See  Yow  and 
Uncle  Lum  Lee  and  the  others.  He  had 
never  felt  so  queer  there.  He  did  not 
know  that  he  was  sick.  He  only  knew 
that  sometimes  the  teacher  sitting  as  he 
supposed  by  baby  Hop  seemed  to  turn 
into  old  See  Yow,  and  sometimes  she 
looked  like  his  father.  And  sometimes 
the  tapers  that  were  lit  seemed  to  whirl 
and  change,  as  he  had  seen  the  moonlight 
on  the  waves  near  by  the  fishing  village  at 
night. 

His  throat  hurt.  He  had  not  eaten  his 
rice.  His  throat  felt  as  little  Whan  said 
his  felt  that  day  at  the  feast  of  Kwong 
Goon,  when  the  bony  -  fingered  woman 
clasped  his  neck  so  tightly,  to  keep  him 
from  swallowing  the  piece  of  fish. 

As  Ti  lay  looking  with  feverish  eyes, 
suddenly  the  teacher's  face  seemed  to 
him  to  be  that  of  the  heathen  deity, 
Kwong  Goon.  The  child  shuddered.  He 
could  not  reason  any  more.  He  thought 
Kwong  Goon's  fingers  were  clasping  the 
neck  of  this  little  sick  Chinese  boy,  Ti 
himself. 

"  I  did  not  touch  your  fish!  Whan  did 
it!"  Ti  struggled  to  cry  out,  but  the  words 
stopped  in  his  throat. 

Surely  the  great,  the  dreadful  Kwong 
Goon  would  not  make  such  a  mistake! 


TI:  A   S'lORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 

He  must  know  the  difference  between  Ti 
and  Whan! 

He  tried  to  shut  his  feverish  eyes,  but 
they  would  come  open  again,  and  every 
time  he  opened  them  he  became  more  and 
more  sure  that  it  wras  not  the  teacher 
woman  who  sat  there,  but  it  must  be 
Kwong  Goon.  Poor  little  Ti!  He  was 
becoming  more  and  more  feverish  and 
confused.  He  did  not  have  his  right 
mind,  or  he  would  not  have  thought  so 
foolish  a  thing,  but  the  continual  talk  of 
his  relatives  about  Kwong  Goon,  the  last 
few  weeks,  had  frightened  him,  and  now 
his  feverish  brain  was  alarmed  at  seeing 
what  he  thought  was  Kwong  Goon's  face. 
The  teacher  did  not  know  that  the  little 
boy  lay  there  in  a  state  of  terror,  or  she 
would  have  sprung  up  and  come  to  him. 
He  opened  his  lips  and  tried  to  cry,  "  Go 
away,  Kwong  Goon!  Go  away!"  He 
tried  to  say,  "  You  must  not  kill  me!"  but 
something  in  his  throat  seemed  to  stop 
the  words. 

The  imagined  face  seemed  to  come 
nearer.  It  was  dreadful  Kwong  Goon. 
Ti  tried  to  cry  out,  to  escape.  Kwong 
Goon  came  nearer. 

"Go  away!"  the  sick  boy  tried  to 
scream.  "  Go  away!" 

But  he  could  not  speak.  He  felt  as  if 
he  were  choking.  Suddenly  he  felt  the 
teacher  woman  bending  over  him. 

"  Ti,"  she  said  gently  in  Chinese,  "  lit- 
tle Ti,  what  is  it?  Do  not  be  afraid. 
Remember  Jesus  is  here  —  Jesus  that  I 
told  you  about,  Ti  —  Jesus  who  loves 


29 

you.  He  is  strong.  He  can  keep  you 
safe." 

Ti  could  not  answer.  The  teacher 
lifted  him.  He  heard  a  wailing.  There 
came  a  strong  odor  of  incense.  He 
gasped. 

Then  he  did  not  remember  things  any 


A  man  with  a  dog's  nose  will  live  long,"  said  the 
fortune-teller. 


more  for  a  while.  Occasionally  the 
teacher's  face  would  show  in  the  mist  that 
seemed  to  surround  him.  One  time  it 
occurred  to  him  to  wonder  why  the 
teacher  woman  did  not  leave  him  any 
more  and  go  to  Hop.  He  tried  to  turn 
his  head  and  look  toward  baby  Hop.  It 
took  a  good  deal  of  trying,  but  at  last  he 
did  turn  his  head.  The  place  where  the 
baby  had  lain  was  empty.  Ti  shut  his 


30 


TI:  A   STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


eyes,  and  everything  drifted  away  into 
mist  again.  At  the  fishing  -  hamlet  he 
had  sometimes  seen  the  fog  roll  up  the 
bay  and  cover  everything  from  sight.  So 
now  everything  vanished. 

He  did  not  know  when  the  wailing- 
women  came,  and  candles  were  burned, 
and  afterwards  Chinese  imitation  paper 
money  was  thrown  away  on  the  street,  as 
the  bodies  of  little  "VYhan  and  little  Hop 
were  taken  away  to  the  Chinese  burying 
ground  far  out  toward  the  ocean. 

In  the  days  that  came  the  Christian 
teacher  woman  stayed  with  Ti  and  did 
her  best  to  comfort  Ah  Cheng.  When- 
ever she  could,  she  tried  to  teach  her 
more  about  Jesus.  But  Ah  Cheng  was 
afraid  to  believe,  for  all  her  life  she  had 
feared  the  gods,  and  what  the  teacher  told 
her  seemed  too  good  to  be  true. 

Gradually  Ti  grew  better.  He  was  out 
of  danger.  His  father,  who  knew  from 
the  epidemics  of  diphtheria  in  China  how 
that  disease  can  take  away  children,  felt 
much  relieved  that  Ti  was  growing  better. 
He  believed  that  diphtheria  is  caused  by 
an  evil  spirit,  and  now  he  went  to  the 
joss-house  and  posted  on  the  wall  a  red 
paper  of  thanksgiving  for  Ti's  recovery. 

According  to  the  Chinese  custom  of 
wailing,  little  Whan  and  baby  Hop  were 
wailed  for  by  their  mother  at  a  set  time 
of  day  every  seventh  day  for  seven  suc- 
cessive weeks.  But  it  was  no  formal 
mockery  of  wailing  with  poor  Ah  Cheng. 
Sometimes  Chinese  people  wail  at  the  set 
time  and  then  suddenly  break  off  wailing 


and  go  about  their  work  as  if  nothing  had 
happened  except  that  they  had  performed 
a  duty.  But  Ah  Cheng's  mourning  came 
from  her  heart,  and  many  a  time,  besides 
the  set  wailing  periods,  she  wept  for  her 
little  children,  and  often  in  her  loneliness 
she  sobbed,  "  I  shall  never  see  them 
again!" 

When  Ti  was  well  enough  to  be  around 
again,  his  uncle  and  aunt  besought  his 
father,  saying,  "  Let  Ti  stay  with  us  a 
while!  Whan  is  dead  and  Hop  is  dead. 
Let  Ti  stay  to  comfort  us  a  while." 

So  Ti's  father,  pitying  the  lonely  par- 
ents, went  back  to  the  fishing-hamlet 
alone,  and  Ti  was  left  to  live  on  with  his 
uncle  and  aunt. 

CHAPTEK  V. 

A   NEW   ACQUAINTANCE. 

HEY  were  very  kind  to  Ti  in 
his  uncle's  home.  The 
Chinese  are  fond  of  chil- 
dren, and  Ti  had  no  mother 
at  the  fishing-hamlet  to 
worry  about  him. 

When  the  twenty-first  day  after  the 
death  of  little  Whan  and  Hop  was  pass- 
ing, Ti's  aunt  looked  very  sorrowful.  She 
spread  a  table  with  food,  such  as  little 
Whan  and  Hop  had  liked  in  their  life- 
time. That  night  the  doors  were  all  left 
unlocked,  and  the  uncle  and  Ti  and  his 
aunt  went  to  bed.  But  Ah  Cheng  wept, 
for  she  believed  that  at  midnight  her  little 
boys'  spirits  would  return  and  she  would 


not  see  them.  JJut  the  doors  must  not  be 
locked  on  her  own  children.  They  must 
be  allowed  to  come  in.  The  Chinese 
think  that  it  is  not  till  a  person  has  been 
<lcad  twenty-one  days  that  he  knows  he  is 
dead.  Then  he  discovers  it  and  is  fright- 
ened. Crying  out  in  alarm,  he  starts 
hack  to  earth.  Ti's  aunt  thought  that 
her  little  boys  would  come  back  and  take 
ihe  essence  of  the  food  she  had  set  out  for 
them,  and  would  go  away  again  to  the 
spirit  world,  leaving  the  substance  of  the 
food  for  the  family  to  eat  the  next  morn- 
ing. Xo  wonder  that  stricken  Ah  Cheng 
cried  all  night  at  the  thought  that  her 
two  little  children  came  back,  frightened, 
and  she  could  neither  see  nor  speak  to 
them,  and  they  went  away  again. 

"  I  shall  never  see  them  again!"  wept 
the  poor  mother  through  the  night. 
"  Kun  Yam!  Kim  Yam!  I  shall  never 
see  them  again!" 

The  teacher  who  had  been  so  kind  dur- 
ing the  children's  illness  came  often  now 
to  try  to  comfort  their  mother  and  teach 
lier  and  Ti.  But  it  seemed  almost  impos- 
sible for  Ah  Cheng  to  believe  and  so  be 
comforted.  She  was  very  superstitious, 
and  in  this  new  home  to  which  Ti  had 
come,  the  "front  door  god,"  the  "street 
god,"  the  "floor  god,"  the  "kitchen 
god,"  the  "bed  god,"  the  "roof  god," 
the  "  water  god,"  and  the  "  sky  goddess  " 
were  worshiped. 

The  teacher  was  very  kind  and  pitiful 
to  the  poor  mother. 

"  I  want  to  tell  you  something,   Ah 


TI:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN.  31 

Cheng,"  she  said  one  day,  when  she  had 
come  in  and  found  the  heart  -  broken 
woman  bowed  before  the  old  picture  of 
the  goddess  of  mercy,  and  Ti  sitting  so- 
berly watching  his  aunt's  tears  and 
sobbing. 

"  I  want  to  tell  you  something,"  she 
repeated.  "  A  number  of  years  ago  there 
lived  in  China  a  girl  who  worshiped  the 
goddess  of  mercy,  as  you  worship  her. 
After  this  girl  had  worshiped  the  goddess 
for  twenty  years,  her  mother  lay  dying. 
The  mother  told  the  family  to  make  her 
ready  and  lay  her  away  to  die.  So  they 
dressed  her  in  good  clothes  and,  putting 
her  on  a  board,  laid  her  in  another  room 
to  die.  The  mother  died  and  was  buried. 
The  daughter  felt  very  badly,  but  the 
goddess  of  mercy  did  not  help  in  this 
great  trouble." 

Ah  Cheng's  wistful  eyes  were  fixed  on 
the  teacher's  face. 

"No,  the  goddess  did  not  help,"  re- 
peated the  teacher  gently  in  Chinese. 
"  The  poor  daughter  had  no  hope  of  ever 
seeing  her  mother  again.  The  only  help 
she  had  was  to  go  and  lie  on  her  mother's 
grave  all  day,  in  hope  that  she  might 
dream  of  her  at  night.  It  was  only  in 
dreams  that  the  poor  daughter  had  any 
hope  of  ever  seeing  her  dear  mother's  face 
again." 

The  tears  filled  poor  Ah  Cheng's  eyes. 
She  could  not  even  go  and  lie  on  her  chil- 


dren's graves,  for  they  were  away  on 
the  sand  dunes  out  by  the  ocean,  and  she 
was  a  Chinese  woman  and  must  stay  in 


32 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 

to  be  with  you  right  here  in  your  home 


the  little  rooms  where  she  lived.     How 

often  she  had  longed  to  dream  of  her  two    every  day,  to  comfort  and  help  you." 

little  ones  since  they  died! 

"  Let  me  tell  you  the  rest  of  the  story, 
Ah    Cheng,"    said    the    teacher    gently. 


Ah  Cheng  cried,  but  she  dared  not  be- 
lieve. She  was  afraid  of  the  gods.  Oh, 
how  she  did  wish  she  could  see  her  little 
"  That  poor  daughter  would  not  pray  to  ones  again  and  know  this  Jesus  that  the 
the  goddess  of  mercy  any  more,  after  her  teacher  told  about!  If  only  she  could  be 
mother's  death.  Kun  Yam  had  not  helped  sure  they  were  safe  and  happy,  as  the 
in  her  time  of  great  trouble,  so  now  for  teacher  woman  said!  But  Cheng's  hus- 
seven  years  the  daughter  worshiped  noth-  band  had  said  that  the  "  Jesus  doctrine  " 


ing.     She  kept  the  old  picture  of  the  god-    (religion)  was  not  true, 
dess  of  mercy,  but  she  did  not  worship  it,    was  sorely  puzzled, 
and  she  was  very  unhappy. 

"  But  one  day  she  went  to  see  a  friend 


Poor  Ah  Cheng 


The  teacher  saw  how  it  was.  "  Poor 
Ah  Cheng!"  she  thought  as  she  went 
at  a  Christian  hospital.  At  the  hospital  away.  "  Poor,  heart-broken  creature!  I 
one  of  the  helpers,  noticing  her  sad  face,  will  pray  for  her  and  help  her  to  come  to 
began  to  talk  to  her  about  Jesus.  She 
told  her  that  Jesus  could  make  her  happy. 


Jesus." 

One  day  the  teacher  gave  Ti  a  brown 


She  became  very  attentive,  and  when  she 
went  away  the  helper  asked  her  to  come 


paper  book,  full  of  Chinese  characters. 
"  Ti,"  she  said,  "your  uncle  loves  you. 


again  as  soon  as  she  could  to  hear  more  Perhaps  he  will  do  for  you  what  he  will 

about  Jesus.  not  do  for  me.     Listen  to  me.     This  is  a 

"  She  came  again  and  again,  and  as  she  wonderful  book.     It  is  the  Jesus  book, 

learned  about  Jesus  she  learned  to  love  and  I  give  it  to  you.     I  want  you  to  ask 


your  uncle  to  read  it. 


He  will  not  read 
He  loves  you. 


him  and  great  joy  came  into  her  heart. 

"  Jesus  made  the  daughter  happy,  dear  it  for  me,  but  you  ask  him. 

Ah  Cheng,  and  it  is  Jesus  who  can  help  He  will  do  much  for  you." 

you.  He  wants  you  to  learn  to  know  him,  So  Ti,  who  loved  the  teacher  because 

so  he  can  give  you  joy,  too.     He  wants  to  she  had  been  good  to  him  when  he  was 


make  you  happy  even  if  you  cannot  now 
see  your  children.     And  then  by  and  by 


sick,   took  the   brown   paper  book   and 
kept  it  carefully.     It  was  not  as  pretty  as 


when  you  die  he  wants  to  take  you  to  a  the  red  paper  the  other  teacher  woman 

beautiful  place  where  you  will  see  him  had  sent  to  the  fishing-hamlet,  but  he 

face  to  face,  and  your  little  ones,  too,  and  knew  that  this  brown  paper  book  must  be 

where  your  children  will  never  be  taken  something  valuable,  if  this  kind  teacher 

from  you  again.     But  you  need  not  be  said  so. 

lonely  and  grieving  till  then.     He  wajits  But  though  Ti  asked  his  uncle  many 


Tl:  A    STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 

times,  the  uncle  would  not  read  the  book, 
\vhich  was  the  New  Testament  in  Chi- 
nese. But  the  little  boy  did  not  yet  know 
the  reason  of  that  refusal. 

He  missed  his  two  cousins  very  much. 
The  teacher  saw  this,  and  she  begged  that 
the  aunt  and  the  uncle  would  let  Ti  go 
to  a  small  daily  Chinese  Mission  school 
with  which  she  was  connected.  "  He  will 
be  happy  with  the  other  children,"  urged 
the  teacher,  "  and  I  will  myself  come  for 
him  every  day  and  will  bring  him  safely 
back  after  school." 

But  the  uncle  would  not  consent. 
"  No/'  said  he  sternly.  "  Ti  shall  not  go! 
The  Jesus  doctrine  is  very  bad!" 

He  frowned  at  the  teacher  as  he  spoke. 
He  knew  what  had  happened  in  another 
Chinese  family,  he  said,  after  a  little  boy 
had  been  allowed  to  go  to  the  school. 
"  The  little  boy's  father,"  he  said,  "  made 
the  boy  put  the  incense  sticks  up  after  the 
custom  of  Chinese  worship.  The  boy  was 
standing  on  a  chair  to  put  the  incense 
sticks  in  place,  but  he  did  it  very  slowly. 
His  heart  was  not  in  it,  but  he  did  it  be- 
cause he  must  obey  his  father.  The  boy's 
little  brother  said,  (  He  doesn't  want  to 
do  it.  He  believes  in  Jesus.'  And  the 
father  then  struck  the  little  boy  who  was 
putting  up  the  incense  sticks  and  pushed 
him  off  the  chair.  The  boy  cried  a  little, 
but  it  was  true  that  he  did  not  exactly 
wish  to  put  up  the  incense  sticks.  Ti 
shall  not  become  like  that  boy." 

At  this  the  teacher,  fearing  that  she 
might  be  forbidden  to  come  to  the  house 


33 

if  she  said  more,  did  not  urge  Ti's  attend- 
ance on  school.  "  But  I  do  wish  we  could 
have  him,"  she  thought.  "  He  is  so 
bright,  and  already  he  understands  a  little 
of  what  I  have  tried  to  tell  him  about 
Christ.  Still,  I  dare  not  talk  about  our 
school  any  more  now!  Poor  little  Ti!" 
But  she  did  not  know  that  she  would 


Yun. 

have  Ti  in  school  yet.  In  his  loneliness 
it  was  not  long  till  the  little  lad  had  be- 
come acquainted  with  a  Chinese  boy  who 
lived  near  his  uncle's  store.  The  boy  was 
several  years  older  than  Ti,  and  was 
named  Yun.  Yun  went  to  an  American 
public  school,  where  he  learned  to  read 
English.  Late  in  the  afternoons,  he  went 
to  still  another  school,  kept  by  a  China- 
man, who  taught  boys  how  to  read  and 


34 


TI:  A   STOtiY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


write  Chinese  characters.  Yun  was  a 
very  different  boy  in  one  school  from  what 
he  was  in  the  other.  In  the  morning  and 


Reading  aloud  the  news. 

early  afternoon  public  school,  taught  by 
Americans,  he  was  a  restless,  fun-loving 
boy.  In  the  late  afternoon  when  he  went 
to  learn  Chinese  characters  of  the  teacher 
brought  from  China,  he  dared  not  misbe- 


have. Yun  would  have  thought  such  a 
thing  dreadful.  Some  of  the  Chinese  boys 
who  went  to  these  schools  wore  certain 
"  honorable  "  gowns, 
long  and  blue,  and 
those  who  wore  such 
a  garment  would  not 
have  disgraced  it  by 
misbehaving.  Yun 
did  not  have  one  of 
these  gowns,  but  in 
his  ordinary  Chinese 
dress  he  would  not 
have  behaved 
wrongly  in  the  Chi- 
nese teachers'  public 
school. 

Ti,  seeing  Yun 
start  off  to  attend 
schools  so  often,  and 
knowing  that  he  was 
learning  Chinese 
characters,  was 
greatly  impressed, 
and  believed  that  he 
knew  a  great  deal. 
Yun's  family  be- 
lieved in  learning. 
His  grandfather,  who 

^  wore    great    goggles 

fi  n  d  occasionally 
smoked  a  pipe  that 
was  about  a  yard  long,  was  reputed  to  be 
a  very  learned  man;  and  Yun's  father 
published  a  Chinese  newspaper  every 
week,  in  some  rooms  -upstairs  across  the 
street  from  Ti's  uncle's  store.  No  won- 


Tl:  A    82ORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


der  that  the  boy  Yun  must  go  to  school 
so  much  and  learn  so  many  Chinese  char- 
acters. He  must  become  wise,  like  the 
others  of  his  family. 

Ti  used  to  walk  across  the  street,  and 
stand  at  the  Chinese  printing-office  stair- 
way door,  and  listen  to  the  Chinamen 
Beading,  for  by  the  door  were  red  and  pink 
posters  that  told  what  the  news  was,  and 
sometimes  there  were  several  men  about 
the  door,  reading  the  news  aloud.  Ti 
could  not  read  the  Chinese  characters, 
himself,  of  course,  but  he  used  to  look  at 
the  bulletins  and  think  he  would  read 
sometime. 

When  none  of  the  men  were  around, 
the  editor's  boy,  Yun,  would  sometimes 
proudly  show  off  his  knowledge  to  Ti  by 


35 

was  to  be  printed.  The  old-fashioned 
lithographic  process  was  followed  in  get- 
ting out  the  paper.  On  the  floor  Ti 
would  see  scattered  clippings  from 
American  or  Chinese  papers,  and  he 
would  go  away  downstairs  again,  feeling 
how  very  ignorant  he  was,  and  how  many, 
many  things  there  were  yet  in  this  world 
for  him  to  learn. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  WORD   "SHU." 

HERE  came  a  time  when  Ti 
was  shocked  out  of  his 
friendship  for  Yun.  One 
afternoon,  when  Yun  was 
going  to  the  Chinese 


pointing  out  characters  and  telling  their    teachers'  school,  Ti  was  permitted  to  go, 
names,  and  Ti  would  listen  and  admire,    too,  as  a  visitor.     He  had  never  been  in  a 


and  wonder  at  Yun's  learning. 

Innocent  Ti  did  not  notice  that  Yun 


Chinese  school,  and  he  was  very  much  im- 
pressed, as  Yun  knew  he  would  be.  There 


men   were   by.      Yun    was    crafty.      He 
knew  he  could  impress  Ti,  but  he  knew 


was  not  wont  to  air  his  knowledge  when    were  two  rooms  of  Chinese  boys,  studying 

under  two  Chinese  teachers.  Yun  was  in 
the  room  for  less  advanced  scholars,  but 
also  that  it  would  be  a  long  time  before  he  that  made  no  difference  with  Ti's  admira- 
could  become  a  good  reader  of  Chinese,  tion  for  him.  There  were  about  twenty 
and  it  was  wise  to  refrain  from  trying  to  pupils  in  Yun's  room.  They  were  all 
show  off  before  men  who  might  laugh.  boys,  and  they  sat  at  desks  and  kept  their 
Occasionally  Yun  took  Ti  upstairs  to  hats  on  in  the  school-room.  Some  of  the 


the  Chinese  printing-office,  and  let  him 
look  in.  He  would  see  a  man  whose  face 
showed  marks  which  told  that  he  had 
once  had  the  "heavenly  blossom,"  as  some 
Chinese  call  smallpox.  This  pock-marked 


Chinese  boys  dressed  in  American  clothes, 
but  most  wore  their  common,  every-day 
dress. 

The  teacher,  a  dignified  Chinaman  on 
the  platform  in  front  of  the  school,  wore 


man  Ti  would  see  sitting  engraving  the    a  somewhat  long,  dark  blouse  and  green 
stone  from  which  the  next  week's  paper    trousers   that    were    fastened    about   his 


36 


TI:  A    SIORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


ankles.  His  cap  had  a  red  button  on  top, 
and  from  a  hook  beside  the  teacher  hung 
another  blouse  of  his,  lined  with  blue 
silk. 

Ti  sat  at  a  desk,  and  listened,  and 
looked.  There  was  a  great  deal  to  listen 
to,  for  the  Chinese  boys  studied  out  loud. 
It  was  rather  startling  when  a  boy  who 
had  been  sitting  listlessly  at  his  desk 
would  suddenly  begin  studying  in  a  loud, 
shrill  voice.  But  everybody  was  used  to 
it.  There  was  continually  one  boy  after 
another  carrying  his  brown  paper  book 


ROUND 

USED  IN  TtiL 
CtllNESt  5CT1COL   IN  5AN  fRAMClSCO- 


of  Chinese  characters  to  the  teacher's 
platform.  The  teacher  would  mark  a 
certain  place  in  the  book  with  a  red  pen- 
cil, and  the  boy  would  begin  to  say  the 
characters,  and  the  teacher  would  go 
through  with  some  sing-song  recitation 
too,  almost  always,  so  that,  taking  the 
teacher,  and  the  boy  that  was  reciting, 
and  the  dozen  or  so  other  boys  that  were 
studying  aloud,  there  was  much  noise  in 
the  room.  Yet  it  was  an  orderly  sort  of 
noise,  after  all.  None  of  the  pupils  misbe- 
haved. Once  a  boy  left  his  seat  and  spoke 
a  short  sentence  to  another  boy,  but  this 
seemed  to  be  no  infringement  of  rules. 


The  speaker  went  immediately  back  to 
his  seat  again. 

"  See  me,  what  I  do!"  said  Yun  to  Ti. 
With  a  proud  heart  Yun  took  his  book 
and  went  to  the  platform.  Giving  the 
teacher  the  book,  he  turned  his  back  to 
him,  as  was  proper  in  reciting  from  mem- 
ory, and  began  a  somewhat  long  recitation 
in  Chinese.  Only  once  did  the  teacher 
have  to  correct  him.  Ti  looked  on  in  great 
admiration.  When  should  he  ever  be  able 
to  "  back  the  book  "  like  that? 

When  Yun,  proud  of  his  success,  came 
back  to  his  seat,  he  proceeded  further  to 
impress  Ti  by  preparing  to  write.  Now 
Yun  could  not  yet  make  Chinese  charac- 
ters without  tracing  them,  but  Ti  watched 
his  method  of  writing  with  great  respect. 
On  his  desk  he  had  what  looked  a  good 
deal  like  a  round  box  of  hard  shoe-black- 
ing, such  as  bootblacks  use.  Yun's  cake 
was  not  shoe-blacking  at  all,  however,  but 
dry  ink,  such  as  the  other  Chinese  boys 
had.  Toward  one  side  of  the  round  cake 
was  a  hole. 

Yun  left  his  desk,  and,  carrying  the 
black  cake  of  ink,  went  out  the  back  door 
of  the  school-room.  He  returned  with 
the  hole  in  his  ink-receptacle  filled  with 
water.  Then  he  rubbed  some  of  the 
water  on  his  dry,  round  cake  of  ink.  He 
took  his  book,  which  had  leaves  made  of 
white  paper  that  looked  as  thin  as  tissue 
paper,  and  yet,  for  all  their  thinness,  not 
one  leaf  was  torn.  On  the  leaves  were 
many  red  or  black  Chinese  characters.  At 
the  left-hand  end  of  the  book  were  two  of 


the  transparent  white  leaves  that  had 
never  been  cut  lengthwise.  They  were 
purposely  left  whole,  though  the  top  and 
bottom  had  been  cut.  In  this  way  the 
two  leaves  made  a  kind  of  case. 

Between  these  leaves  Yun  slipped  a 
loose  sheet  of  Chinese  characters.  Of 
course  the  characters  showed  through  the 
almost  transparent  white  paper.  Then 
he  took  an  implement  that  looked  much 
like  a  sharpened  wooden  pencil  that  had 
small  Chinese  characters  on  pink  paper 
pasted  around  the  handle  end  of  the  im- 
plement. Yun  rubbed  the  point  of  this 
writing  implement  on  the  wet  cake  of  ink. 
and  began  to  trace  the  Chinese  char- 
acters showing  through  the  thin  white 
paper.  He  did  this  work  with  great  ac- 
curacy. 

Before  going  home,  Ti  obtained  a  peep 
into  the  other  school-room  where  the 
older  scholars  were  studying.  The  teacher 
of  this  room  was  not  very  pleasant-look- 
ing, he  thought.  He  did  not  like  that 
teacher  so  well  as  the  one  in  Yun's  room. 
This  other  teacher  sat  on  a  platform  at 
the  left-hand  side  of  the  room,  instead  of 
the  front,  and  the  scholars  all  had  their 
hats  on,  and  these  boys  studied  out  loud 
with  more  noise  than  the  boys  in  the 
other  room.  On  two  desks  were  queer 
little  green  animals,  made  of  some  sort  of 
ware,  each  looking  somewhat  like  a  horse 
with  his  head  in  the  air.  In  the  middle 
of  the  back  of  the  "  horse  "  was  a  round 
hole,  for  these  animals  were  meant  to  con- 
tain water.  If  Yun  had  had  such  a 


TI:  A   STOUT  OF   CHlNAlOWX.  37 

"  horse,"  he  would  not  have  had  to  carry 
his  cake  of  ink  out  of  the  room  to  get 
water. 

Back  of  all  the  scholars  in  this  second 
room  was  a  little  table.  Ti  knew  the 
purpose  of  it  at  once.  Above  the  table 
was  a  picture  -  frame  containing  a  red 
paper  with  large  Chinese  characters. 
Some  sort  of  pink  drapery  was  about  the 
picture-frame,  and  two  stiff  bunches  of 
what  might  be  called  artificial  flowers 
were  above.  On  the  table  below  were 
tiny  splints  in  a  vase.  The  whole  was  a 
Chinese  shrine,  in  honor  of  idol- worship. 
"  To  make  it  to  joss,"  was  Yun's  explan- 
ation of  the  shrine. 

As  Ti,  greatly  impressed  with  his  after- 
noon at  the  school,  walked  home  with 
Yun,  vainglorious  Yun  grew  proudly 
boastful.  Ti  was  so  gentle  and  believing 
that  he  looked  on  these  boastings  as  per- 
fect truth.  But  at  last  Yun  went  too  far 
in  his  talk.  He  said  something  that 
startled  Ti. 

"  When  I  am  a  man,  I  shall  know  both 
English  and  Chinese,"  said  he  in  Chinese 
proudly,  "  and  I  shall  translate  important 
news  from  the  American  newspapers  for 
our  honorable  Chinese  paper,  as  my 
father  does  now!  Perhaps  I  shall  be  one 
of  the  men  who  look  over  the  news  of  the 
steamers  from  China!  I  shall  be  very 
learned,  and  I  shall  be  ten  parts  glad  that 
I  know  so  much!  But  your  uncle  will 
never  know  anything,  for  he  gambles 
every  night,  so  that  he  will  never  read  a 
book,  because  every  day  he  means  to 


38 


TI:  A   STOHY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


gamble  again  at  night,  and  he  is  afraid 
of  the  word 'shii'!" 

Ti  stared  at  Yun.  "  It  is  not  true!"  he 
exclaimed  indignantly,  for  his  uncle  had 
been  quite  kind  and  had  gained  the  boy's 
love. 

"Ask  your  uncle  and  see!"  answered 
Yun  tauntingly.  "  Does  your  uncle  read 
a  book  any  day?  No,  he  gambles  every 
night,  and  he  is  afraid  of  the  word 
'shii'!" 

Ti  stood  and  stared  at  Yun  with  great 
indignation.  "  My  uncle  is  not  afraid! 
My  uncle  is  not  a  gambler!"  he  asserted, 
though  he  hardly  knew  what  a  gambler 
was,  but  guessed  from  Yun's  words  that 
it  must  be  something  discreditable. 

Yun  laughed.  "  You  come  from  a  lit- 
tle fishing-hamlet,  and  you  know  noth- 
ing!" said  he  scornfully.  "You  live  in 
the  same  house  with  your  uncle,  and  you 
do  not  know  that  he  is  a  gambler!  Ask 
him  and  see!  Ask  him  to  say  the  word 
'shii'!  He  will  not  say  it!  Ask  him! 
Every  gambler  fears  the  word  e  shii  'I'9 

Ti  began  to  run.  He  wanted  to  get 
away  from  these  taunting  words.  He  did 
not  believe  them. 

"Your  uncle  is  afraid  of  reading  a 
book!"  Yun  kept  calling  after  him  in  Chi- 
nese. "  Your  uncle  gambles  every  night, 
and  he  is  afraid  of  the  word  'shii'!  I 
shall  be  much  wiser  than  your  uncle!" 

Ti  would  not  listen  to  anything  more 
Yun  said.  He  ran  home  to  the  store, 
feeling  as  if  he  did  not  want  to  go  to  see 
him  again. 


But  alas!  He  found  out  that  all  Yun. 
had  said  was  true.  His  uncle  was  a  great 
lover  of  gambling,  and  lost  much  money 
thereby.  This  was  the  reason  why  there 
often  was  not  much  money  in  the  house- 
hold, even  though  things  in  the  store  sold. 

Now,  Chinese  gamblers  do  not  like  to 
read  books  before  playing,  because  the 
word  "shii,"  meaning  "book,"  sounds 
like  the  word  "  shii,"  meaning  "  to  lose," 
and  these  gamblers  are  superstitious. 
They  are  careful  not  to  speak  any  word 
considered  unlucky,  lest  such  utterance 
should  make  them  lose  money  when  they 
play.  Ti  noticed  that  his  uncle  in  speak- 
ing of  the  almanac  —  a  useful  thing  by 
which  a  Chinese  may  compute  the  lucky 
or  unlucky  days  and  know  when  to  com- 
mence any  enterprise  —  never  mentioned 
the  almanac  by  its  name,  "t'ung  shii," 
for  there  was  that  ill-omened  word  "  shii  " 
again.  So  he  called  the  almanac  "kat 
sing,"  or  "lucky  stars."  Alas!  As  he 
gambled  every  night,  there  did  not  come 
a  day  when  he  would  not  have  considered 
it  unlucky  to  read  the  Jesus  book,  because 
it  was  a  book,  "  shii."  So  he  refused  to 
read  it,  and  was  sometimes  cross  with  Ti 
for  asking. 

One  night,  when  he  went  out  to  play 
the  gambling  game  of  "Fan  T'an,"  he 
took  Ti,  too,  to  the  gambling  place. 
There  were  no  bright  colors  in  the  inner 
fan  fan  cellar  that  the  two  entered 
through  an  outer  cellar.  There  was 
white,  the  Chinese  color  of  mourning, 
that  makes  players  lose  their  money,  and 


the  owners  of  the  game  gain  the  cash. 
There  was  a  table  covered  with  a  mat, 


TJie  Tan  Kun. 


and  there  were  some  chairs.  Other  men 
secretly  came  in  to  play.  Fan  fan  games 
were  forbidden  by  law  in  this  city  of  the 
Americans,  but  little  Ti  did  not  know  it. 
The  two  owners  of  the  game,  the  T'an 
kun,  or  "  Ruler  of  the  Spreading  Out," 
and  the  Ho  kiin,  or  cashier,  were  there. 
The  T'an  kiin  was  a  cross-looking  China- 
man who  stood  by  erne  side  of  the  table, 
and  the  Ho  kun  was  a  crosser-looking 
Chinaman. 

The  stout  door  between  this  cellar 
and  the  outer  portion  of  the  cellar  was 
barred. 


Tl:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN.  39 

Ti  was  very  still.  He  felt  sorry,  for 
he  knew  it  made  his  aunt  angry  to  have 
his  uncle  lose  money;  and  the  teacher 
woman,  after  she  learned  that  Ti  knew 
his  uncle  gambled,  told  him  that  gam- 
bling was  very,  very  bad.  Ti  thought  the 
teacher  was  wise,  and  his  aunt  said  so, 
too. 

The  players  in  the  gambling  cellar  were 
still.  It  is  not  customary  to  talk  while 
playing. 

On  the  table  there  was  a  little  pile  of 
Chinese  "  cash,"  round  coins  with  a 
square  hole  in  the  center  of  each  piece. 
Ti  looked  on,  while  the  T'an  kun  took  a 
handful  of  cash  and  put  them  under  a 
brass  cup,  and  the  players  wagered  their 
money  on  the  numbers  on  the  tin  square, 
the  "spreading  out  square,"  fan  ching, 
in  the  middle  of  the  table. 

Ti  did  not  dare  to  say  anything,  every- 
body was  so  still.  One  Chinese  player 
looked  very  downcast.  On  the  way  here, 
he  had  been  jostled  by  somebody,  and  as 


Chinese  Round  Cash. 


that  is  an  unlucky  sign  according  to  Chi- 
nese gamblers'  superstition,  he  had  turned 


40 


Tl:  A   STOEY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


back.  But  his  desire  to  play  fan  fan  had 
brought  him  here  at  last,  though  he 
looked  as  if  he  expected  to  lose  money. 

Ti  wished  his  uncle  would  come  away 
from  these  men.  He  looked  and  saw  that 
even  the  candles  burning  before  the  joss- 
shrine  were  white  candles  instead  of  red 
ones.  There  must  be  no  color,  excepting 
that  which  is  supposed  to  be  worn  by  the 
spirits  of  the  dead. 

Some  time  passed  and  yet  the  foolish 
Chinese  players  were  eagerly  absorbed  in 
their  game.  They  still  placed  their 
money  beside  the  fan  ching  in  the  center 
of  the  table,  and  the  T'an  kun  counted  the 
Chinese  "  cash  "  with  the  tapering  rod  of 
black  wood  used  for  this  purpose.  Over 
and  over  again  the  players  wagered 
money,  and  Ti's  uncle  sometimes  won  and 
sometimes  lost/  but  almost  always  lost. 
Some  of  the  other  men  lost,  too.  Ti  did 
not  know  that  some  of  these  Chinamen 
were  employes  in  hotels,  who  sometimes 
in  a  single  night  lost  all  their  money  in 
fan  fan  games  or  Chinese  lotteries.  But 
he  was  troubled  because  of  what  the 
teacher  woman  had  said. 

He  slipped  down  on  the  floor  and  sat 
there,  hiding  his  face.  The  eager  players 
forgot  him. 

"  My  uncle  is  doing  bad,"  thought  Ti. 
"  He  gives  all  his  money  to  the  fan  fan 
men,  and  my  aunt  and  the  teacher  woman 
are  much  sorry,  and  my  uncle  will  never 
read  the  Jesus  book,  never!  For  he 
gambles  every  night,  and  he  will  not 
touch  a  book,  and  he  is  afraid  of  anything 


called  'shii.'  So  how  will  he  ever  read 
the  Jesus  book,  as  the  teacher  woman 
wished?" 

The  fan  fan  game  kept  on  in  eager 
silence.  Nobody  thought  of  Ti,  who 
crept  under  the  table  and  went  to  sleep. 

The  next  thing  Ti  knew,  he  was  waked 
by  a  jar  and  a  loud  noise.  There  were 
blows  on  the  outer  cellar  door,  as  if  it 
would  be  broken  in,  and  there  were 
American  men's  voices  in  the  other  cellar. 
The  lights  of  the  cellar  Ti  wa.s  in  were  all 
out.  Crash!  came  the  blows  of  axes  on 
this  cellar's  outer  door. 

"  Uncle!"  screamed  Ti  in  Chinese. 

Wide  awake  now,  and  frightened  at  the 
strange  sounds,  he  scrambled  from  under 
the  table,  and  stretched  out  his  hands, 
expecting  to  feel  somebody.  He  felt  only 
empty  chairs!  Crash!  crash!  came  the 
axes.  The  frightened  little  boy  ran 
around  the  dark  room,  calling  his  uncle 
amid  the  tumult  of  sounds.  He  found  no- 
body. He  stumbled  over  an  overturned 
chair  and  fell,  hurting  himself  a  little. 

Ti  lay  where  he  had  fallen,  too  fright- 
ened to  rise.  His  heart  beat  so  it  gave 
him  a  feeling  of  suffocation. 

"Uncle!  uncle!"  he  cried. 

Why  were  the  lights  all  out?  What 
did  it  all  mean?  Who  was  it  that  was 
trying  to  get  in?  Why  had  the  Chinese 
all  run  away?  Ti  lay,  a  trembling,  piti- 
ful little  object,  in  the  dark.  To  his  hor- 
ror, the  thick  cellar  door  began  to  give 
out  a  splitting  sound.  He  had  faintly 
hoped  that  the  door  might  be  thick 


enough  to  keep  the  men  out,  whoever  they 
were  who  were  trying  to  get  in. 

He  sprang  up  and  ran  wildly  around  in 
the  dark,  stretching  out  his  hands  and 
feeling  no  one  to  help  him  in  his  terror. 
He  fell  over  chairs,  he  picked  him- 
self up,  he  cried  out  in  fear.  He  did 
not  know  what  was  coming.  There  was 
so  much  noise  that  his  voice  was  unheard 
by  those  men  who  were  forcing  their 
way  in. 

"  Where  is  my  uncle?"  sohbed  the 
scared  child  in  Chinese. 

The  crashing  and  the  sound  of  splint- 
ering wood  was  terrifying.  The  door  was 
giving  way. 

"  Bad  men  come  in  and  catch  me!" 
thought  Ti,  his  heart  thumping  and  a 
lump  coming  in  his  throat. 

He  found  the  table  again  and  crawled 
under  it.  He  waited,  shivering.  He  did 
not  know  how  to  get  out  of  the  room. 
He  and  his  uncle  had  come  in  by  the  now 
attacked  door.  In  the  dark  the  little  boy 
could  not  see  to  escape.  He  could  only 
crouch  under  the  table,  too  frightened  to 
attempt  to  search  further  for  any  passage- 
way out  of  the  room.  There  was  not 
time.  He  must  hide. 

There  was  a  great  final  crash.  The 
stout  cellar  door  gave  way.  Ti  caught  his 
breath.  A  flash  of  light  illumined  the 
dark  room,  and  some  men  came  ffe 
through  the  broken  door. 

It  seemed  to  Ti  that  the  men  would  see 
him  the  first  thing.  Oh,  what  would  they 
do  with  him  when  they  found  him? 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN.  41 

The  frightened  child  shuddered.  He 
had  no  doubt  that  he  would  be  instantly 
killed. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  OUTCOME  FOR  TI. 

NE  of  the  policemen  who  had 
entered  the  room  where  the 
game  was  going  on  held  up 
his  lantern  a  moment.  The 
room  was  apparently  empty. 
No  implements  of  fan  fan  were  visible. 
The  players  were  gone.  Nobody  saw  the 
little  boy  under  the  table. 

"Stay  by  the  door,  Jim!  They've 
run!"  said  one  man  hastily;  and  one 
policeman  stayed,  while  the  others  ran 
through  the  cellar  into  the  passageway. 

Under  the  table,  in  the  dark  once 
more,  Ti  crouched  and  trembled.  In  a 
few  minutes  he  heard  distant  blows  as  of 
axes  again  on  wood.  He  could  not  under- 
stand what  was  happening.  He  did  not 
know  that  when  the  policemen,  who  were 
making  a  raid  on  Chinatown  fan  fan 
games,  had  followed  the  passage  for  a  dis- 
tance, they  were  suddenly  confronted 
with  some  thick  iron  bars  that  crossed  the 
pns^age  and  forbade  further  advance. 
\Vhon  the  Ho  kun  and  the  T'an  kun  and 
thfc  excited  players  of  fan  fan,  alarmed 
Over  the  police,  had  fled,  forgetting  Ti 
asleep  under  the  table,  they  had  escaped 
through  these  bars.  There  was  a  secret 
spring  that  the  Ho  kun  and  the  T'an  kun 
knew,  and  if  this  spring  were  touched, 


42 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


the  iron  bars  would  be  raised  out  of  the 
men's  way  and  they  could  pass  through, 
fleeing  in  haste  from  the  police.  But  the 
bars  had  immediately  been  put  in  place 
again,  and  as  the  policemen  did  not  know 
where  the  secret  spring  was,  the  only  way 
they  could  go  on  in  the  passage  was  to 
chop  down  the  posts  to  which  the  bars 
were  attached.  This  took  a  little  time, 
and  the  gamblers  would  have  opportunity 
to  conceal  themselves  or  get  out  of  the 
house  by  the  many  intricate  passages. 

The  policemen  at  length  chopped  their 
way  and  went  on,  but  they  did  not  find 
what  they  sought.  In  some  of  the 
crowded  little  rooms  of  the  building  were 
Chinese  quietly  sitting,  playing  on  little 
musical  instruments  such  as  the  Chinese 
use,  but  no  evidences  of  fan  fan  or  other 
games  were  in  sight.  Search  as  they 
might,  the  policemen  could  find  nothing. 

All  this  time,  Ti  was  hiding  under  the 
table,  back  in  the  cellar.  From  under 
the  table  he  peered  fearfully  out  toward 
the  dark,  for  he  knew  that  one  policeman 
was  there.  This  one  had  no  lantern. 
Everything  was  dark  and  the  policeman 
kept  so  dreadfully  quiet!  Not  a  sound 
came  from  him.  He  was  waiting,  ready 
to  catch  any  Chinaman,  Ti  knew.  He 
was  so  afraid  of  that  policeman!  He  did 
not  know  that  a  policeman  might  be  the 
friend  of  a  little  Chinese  boy  who  was  not 
at  all  to  blame  for  a  fan  fan  game,  but 
had  been  brought  here  by  his  uncle.  Poor 
little  Ti!  How  scared  he  was! 

After  a  while  he  heard  the  other  police- 


men coming  back  to  the  cellar.  They  had 
given  up  their  search  in  the  farther  rooms. 
They  had  found  the  Ho  kun,  and  had 
recognized  him  as  a  man  who  was  believed 
to  know  something  about  some  fan  fan 
schemes,  but  there  was  no  proof  against 
him.  So  they  could  do  nothing  except 
order  the  Ho  kiin  to  go  back  to  the  cellar 
with  them.  If  no  evidences  of  fan  fan 
could  be  found  there,  the  Ho  kun  would 
be  unmolested  further. 

The  policemen  and  the  Ho  kun.  re-en- 
tered the  cellar.  Ti  crouched  under  the 
table. 

"  Why  didn't  somebody  open  the  cellar 
door,  then,  when  we  first  came?"  a  po- 
liceman was  demanding  of  the  Ho  kun. 

If  Ti  could  have  seen  the  Ho  kun's 
face,  the  little  boy  might  have  noticed 
that  it  did  not  look  nearly  as  animated 
as  it  had  looked  during  the  fan  fan  game. 
The  man  had  put  on  a  very  stupid  and 
sleepy  look. 

"  Why?"  repeated  the  Ho  ktin  sleepily. 
"Why?  Keep  door  shut  nights,  evely 
night." 

The  police  began  to  search  among  the 
chairs  and  about  the  room,  but  all  the  im- 
plements of  fan  fan  had  vanished.  Even 
the  table's  mat  was  gone.  Where  was  the 
tin  "  spreading  out  square,"  "  fan  ching," 
and  the  brass  cup,  "fan  koi,"  and  the 
tapering  black  rod,  "fan  pong"?  Where 
was  the  "cash"?  Ah!  all  these  things 
had  been  caught  up  and  run  away  with. 
The  Ho  kun  felt  sure  that  the  police 
would  never  find  the  implements  of  fan 


Tl:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


43 


fan  where  he  had  hidden  them,  and  he 
remained  tranquil,  for  he  knew  nothing 
to  condemn  him  was  in  the  cellar. 

The  policemen  searched  diligently  and 
found  nothing  but  Ti.  It  was  a  dreadful 
moment  of  discovery  to  the  little  hoy.  A 
policeman,  seeing  him  under  the  table, 
drew  him  forth. 

"  Who's  this?"  he  asked. 

"  Lil'  boy,"  said  the  Ho  kiin  blandly. 
"  Nice  liF  boy." 

Ti  burst  into  a  loud  wail  of  terror.  The 
big  policeman  had  children  of  his  own  at 
home.  He  did  not  want  to  scare  this 
child. 

"  Well,"  said  he,  not  unkindly,  "  you're 
in  the  wrong  place,  little  chap.  Don't 
cry,  little  fellow." 

Then  the  policeman  turned  to  the 
Ho  kun.  "  What's  your  name?"  he  de- 
manded. 

"  Wo  Ki,"  answered  the  other,  telling 
the  truth,  for  of  course  "  Ho  kiin "  was 
only  his  official  title  as  cashier  of  the  fan 
fan  game. 

"  Well,"  said  the  policeman,  "  Wo  Ki, 
I'd  like  to  see  you  in  jail,  for  I  haven't 
the  slightest  doubt  that  you've  had  a  fan 
fan  game  running  here.  But  if  I  can't 
find  proof  of  it  to-night,  I  know  well 
enough  you've  had  it;  and  let  me  warn 
you  now,  that  if  you  don't  quit  such  busi- 
ness, the  first  part  of  your  name  will  come 
true!" 

Wo  Ki  did  not  know  exactly  what  that 
meant,  since  he  was  not  familiar  enough 


similarity  in  sound  to  one  of  his  names. 
Besides,  what  sounded  as  if  it  were  Wo 
Ki's  first  name  —  according  to  American 
ideas  —  was  in  reality  not  his  first  but  his 
surname,  since  Chinese  put  their  surname 
first.  It  is  as  if  one  said  "  Smith  Char- 
lie "  instead  of  Cha.rlie  Smith. 

The  police  kept  hunting,  but  the  Ho 
kun  assured  them,  "  You  look.  You  see. 
No  fan  fan.  Me  no  sabe  fan  fan." 

The  Ho  kun  had  never  had  any  Chris- 
tian training.  All  his  life  he  had  lived 
in  heathen  darkness.  He  did  not  speak 
the  truth  to  the  police  about  the  fan  fan 
game. 

But  they  did  not  believe  his  words. 
"Yes,  you  do  sabe  about  fan  fan!"  as- 
serted one  of  them  scornfully.  "  You 
know  well  enough  about  fan  fan!  Didn't 
you  hear  about  that  Chinaman  down  at 
Los  Angeles,  who  ran  a  fan  fan  game,  and 
was  arrested,  and  had  to  put  up  two  hun- 
dred dollars'  bail?" 

The  Ho  kun  did  not  look  as  if  he  were 
.aware  what  the  word  "  bail "  means.  No 
one  could  look  very  much  more  stupid 
than  he  could  when  he  tried. 

The  policemen  were  very  loath  to  give 
up  the  search.  They  examined  every- 
thing closely,  hoping  to  find  some  secret 
place  where  the  fan  fan  implements 
might  have  been  hidden.  But  the  Ho 
kun  and  the  T'an  kun  had  known  better 
than  to  hide  such  things  in  the  cellar. 
Frightened  Ti,  crouching  again  under- 
neath the  table,  cried  silently,  and  dared 


with  the  English  word  "  woe  "  to  know  its    not  look  out.     But  the  policemen  did  not 


44 


disturb  him  again. 

stand    all    the    English    the    policemen 

talked. 

But  the  Ho  kun  was  very  sleepy  and 
very  stupid,  until  the  policemen,  giving 
up  the  search  as  useless,  went  out  of  the 
cellar  door,  through  the  outer  cellar  into 
the  street,  and  away  from  the  build- 
ing. Then  the  Ho  kun  began  to  try  to 
fasten  the  broken  door  as  well  as  pos- 
sible. Having  finished,  he  turned  to  Ti, 
who  was  crouching  trembling  behind 
some  chairs. 

If  Ti  had  been  scared  before  in  the 
presence  of  the  policemen,  he  was  al- 
most more  frightened  now  at  being  left 
alone  with  the  Ho  kun.  He  broke  into 
sobs  again.  Where  was  his  uncle? 

"No  cly!  You  come,"  said  the  Ho 
kun. 

But  the  little  boy  fled.  He  rushed 
away  from  the  Ho  kiin  through  the  pass- 
age the  police  had  traversed.  No  bars 
prevented  him  from  running  on,  for  the 
police  had  cut  down  the  posts.  Ti 
stumbled  over  them,  though,  on  the  floor. 
He  sprang  up  again  and  ran.  He  won- 
dered why  he  had  not  dared  to  run  while 
the  Ho  kun  was  fixing  the  cellar  door.  He 
had  been  too  alarmed  to  think  of  running, 
then. 

The  Ho  kun  followed  through  the 
winding  way.  Ti  was  beside  himself  with 
terror.  He  ran  desperately  through  the 
dark,  bumping  into  partitions.  His  heart 
was  beating  heavily.  Oh,  if  he  could  only 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 
Ti  could  not  under-    kun!      He  wanted   to   cry  so   he   could 


hardly  keep  down  his  sobs.  A  light  was 
coming  behind  him.  By  it,  before  the 
Ho  kiin  came  in  sight  of  the  boy,  Ti 
spied  a  little  nook  between  two  partitions. 
Trembling,  he  crowded  himself  into  the 
narrow  space  and  lay  still. 

On  came  the  footsteps  of  the  dreadful 
Ho  kiin.  Ti  held  his  breath.  He  was 
sure  he  would  be  found,  and  then  what 
would  become  of  him? 

The  light  from  the  taper  the  Ho  kun 
carried  fell  on  his  hardened  face,  as  he 
hurried  along  the  passageway.  Ti's 
frightened  eyes  looked  out  at  the  man, 
who  was  calling,  "  Come!  You  come!" 

The  light  was  dim  and  the  Ho  kun  did 
not  see  Ti  in  his  nook.  He  hurried  on, 
imagining  the  child  was  somewhere 
ahead.  The  little  boy,  left  in  the  dark 
again,  hardly  dared  breathe.  The  foot- 
steps died  away. 

"He  is  walking  softly,"  thought  Ti. 
"  He  thinks  he  will  find  me  and  catch  me. 
I  am  so  afraid  of  him!  He  will  come 
back  when  he  does  not  find  me.  He  will 
come  back  and  find  me  here.  I  shall 
never  see  my  father  and  my  uncle  and  my 
aunt  again.  I  am  so  afraid!" 

He  crawled  out  of  the  nook  where  he 
had  hidden,  and  crept  back  along  the 
passage.  He  wanted  to  go  where  the  Ho 
kun  would  not  come,  wherever  that  might 
be. 

In  moving  through  the  dark,  Ti  found 
a  narrow  passageway  that  turned  off  from 


get  away  from  this  dreadful,  following  Ho    the   one  by  which  he   had   come.      He 


'II:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


stumbled  over  some  jars  standing  in  the 
passage.  He  tried  to  hurry  on,  but  it  was 
of  no  use.  The  Ho  kiin,  not  having 
heard  the  child  for  a  while,  had  been 
standing  listening,  and  now  came  running 
back.  He  rushed  down  the  passage  and 
caught  Ti,  who  screamed  with  terror. 

But  the  Ho  kiin's  big  hand  guided  the 
little  boy,  by  many  queer,  narrow  pass- 
ages, through  to  the  other  side  of  the 
building.  There  at  a  door  opening  into 
an  alley,  Ti's  cowardly  uncle  who  had  run 
away  from  him,  was  waiting. 


AS 

cover  from  his  fright.  He  cried  himself 
to  sleep,  and  during  the  next  few  days  he 
kept  begging  so  to  be  allowed  to  go  back 
to  the  fishing-hamlet  that  his  aunt  and 
uncle  were  at  a  great  loss  how  to  make 
him  contented  to  stay.  They  did  not  wish 
that  he  should  go.  They  missed  their 
own  little  children  too  much. 

But  now  the  teacher  saw  her  oppor- 
tunity to  gain  that  which  she  had  been 
refused  before,  though  she  had  often  re- 
quested it. 

"  If  you  will  let  Ti  go  to  our  school," 


"  No  cly,  no  cly!"  said  the  Ho  kun;    she  said,  "he  will  see  so  many  other  little 


and  Ti,  seeing  his  uncle,  tried  to  stop 
sobbing. 

The  uncle  took  Ti,  and  they  slipped 
into  the  alley  and  hurried  home.  But 
when  they  reached  the  rooms  above  the 
back  of  his  uncle's  store,  Ti  cried  all  his 


Chinese  children  that  he  will  be  happy 
and  will  not  be  lonesome.  It  will  be 
much  better  for  him  than  crying  here  at 
home  and  wishing  he  were  at  the  fishing 
village.  Do  you  not  see  it  will?  "Won't 
you  try  it  a  while  and  see  if  we  can't 


frightened  little  heart  out  in  his  aiuat*|    make    Ti    happy?      The    little    children 


sympathizing  arms.  He  did  not  want  to 
stay  in  the  city  another  minute!  No,  he 
wished  to  go  straight  back  to  his  father 
and  the  fishing  village.  O^,  fan  fan 
was  bad,  bad,  and  there  had  been  police- 
men! 

The  child  wept  and  would  not  be  com- 
forted. He  shrank  from  his  uncle,  who 
was  so  ashamed,  or  else  so  reluctant  to 
lose  the  little  fellow's  confidence,  that, 
going  into  the  store,  he  got  a  pretty  imi- 
tation red  fish,  made  of  cloth,  and 
brought  it  back  and  gave  it  to  him  to 
wear  with  a  crimson  tassel  as  an  orna- 
ment on  the  right-hand  side  of  his  blouse. 
The  fish  was  pretty,  but  Ti  could  not  re- 


so   happy   and    contented   in   our 


teacher  dared  speak  longer  and 
more  \Hfgently  now  than  she  had  done 
heretofore,  because  she  could  see  that  Ti's 
uncle  was  in  a  humiliated  frame  of  mind 
over  his  having  frightened  the  child  so 
badly.  He  had  not  intended  that  the 
visit  to  the  fan  fan  game  should  end  so 
disastrously.  How  was  he  to  have  known 
that  the  police  would  choose  that  night 
for  a  raid?  He  well  knew  that  Ti's  father 
would  have  been  angry  to  see  his  son  in  a 
fan  fan  cellar.  Ti  might  tell  a  woeful 
story  to  his  father  if  he  were  allowed  to 
go  back  to  the  fishing-hamlet  just  now. 


46 


Yet  that  other  little  boy  who  went  to  the 
teacher  woman's  school  had  not  liked  to 
put  up  incense  sticks  afterwards.  That 
was  the  danger  in  sending  children  to  the 
Christians'  school. 

Ti's  uncle  thought  of  this,  but  he 
reasoned  that  something  must  be  done  to 
keep  the  little  boy  more  contented.  Fi- 
nally he  said,  "  Yes,  I  let  Ti  go  to  school 
now,"  and  the  heart  of  the  teacher  was 
glad. 

"Oh,"  she  said  to  herself,  "it  was  a 
good  day  when  poor  little  Ti  came  from 
his  fishing  village  down  to  this  city!  He 
is  so  bright.  He  will  listen  and  learn  to 
understand  what  we  tell  him,  and  will 
come  to  know  Jesus  for  himself.  If  only 
we  can  have  him  a  little  while,  and  his 
father  doesn't  call  him  back  to  that  fish- 
ing village,  how  much  bright  little  Ti  will 
learn!" 

But  Ti's  aunt,  Ah  Cheng,  did  not  know 
whether  to  be  glad  or  sorry  that  he  was 
going  to  attend  the  teacher  woman's 
school.  She  thought  about  it  a  while, 
and  then  after  the  teacher  was  gone,  she 
went  to  the  old  picture  of  the  goddess  of 
mercy,  and  poured  out  tea  before  the  pic- 
ture from  the  little  teapot  that  was  used 
for  this  purpose,  and  burned  incense. 

Yet  even  after  worshiping,  Aunt  Ah 
Cheng  went  about  her  work  troubled  and 
afraid  about  the  little  boy's  going  to  the 
teacher  woman's  school.  She  did  not 
know  how  blessed  a  crisis  in  Ti's  life  this 
going  to  the  Christians'  school  would 
prove  to  be. 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 


THE  JESUS  TEACHERS'  SCHOOL. 

IT  WAS  Ti's  first  afternoon  at 
school.  Around  him  in  the 
school-room  sat  other  little 
Chinese  children,  boys  and 
girls.  Some  of  the  little  girls 
wore  red,  yellow-figured  head-dresses  that 
fitted  over  the  upper  part  of  the  forehead 
and  went  around  to  the  back  of  the  head. 
These  head-dresses  had  green  borders  and 
were  somewhat  like  hats  with  the  crowns 
cut  out. 

One  little  boy  near  him  wore  a  cap  with 
some  Chinese  words  on  the  front  of  it. 
The  words  meant  "  Peace  be  with  you  in 
your  going  in  and  coming  out."  Another 
little  boy  wore  a  cap  that  said  "Bless- 
ings "  in  Chinese.  This  boy  had  bracelets 
of  jade  on  his  chubby  wrists,  and  one  of 
the  teachers  came  and  asked  him  to  take 
off  the  "  Blessings  "  cap.  The  other  lit- 
tle boy  whose  cap  said  the  wish  about 
peace  had  to  take  off  his  head-covering, 
too. 

Most  of  the  children  in  Ti's  room  were 
quite  a  little  younger  than  he;  so  young 
that  their  heathen  parents  thought  the 
children  could  not  learn  anything.  But 
the  children  did  learn.  Some  of  the  little 
ones  sat  on  tiny  low  stools  about  a 
rectangular  bin  of  sand,  and  played  in  the 
sand  with  long  tin  spoons.  One  chubby 
little  Chinese  girl,  who  lifted  sand  with  a 
long  spoon,  could  sing  very  well  in  her 
sweet  baby  voice  a  song  that  begins  with 


the  words,  "  Up,  up  in  the  sky  the  little 
birds  fly,"  and  finishes  with  the  words, 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN.  47 

entirely  through  the  First  Chinese  Book. 
It  was  a  brown  paper  book  with  a  red 
cover  on  one  side,  and  Ti  was  determined 
that  he  would  become  as  smart  as  that 
other  little  boy!  He  was  glad,  though, 
that  he  was  to  learn  in  this  school  instead 
of  the  one  that  Yun  attended.  He  did 
not  like  to  go  with  Yun  any  more,  because 


"  Our  heavenly  Father,  how  kind  and  how 
good." 

At  some  of  the  low  tables  sat  other 
little  girls  with  paper-weaving.  One  girl's 
queue  was  finished  with  braided  pink  and 
green  and  yellow  and  blue,  and  then 
wound  on  the  back  of  her  head  so  it 
looked  like  one  of  the  flat  table-mats  that 
are  sometimes  woven  by  American  chil- 
dren by  aid  of  pins  and  thread  of  dif-  he  kept  speaking  teasingly  of  his  uncle's 
ferent  colors.  The  Chinese  children's  gambling. 

blue  and  red  colored  shoes  showed  under        Ti  saw  in  the  school-room  before  him  a 
the  low  tables.     One  little  boy  had  read    big  chart  with  what  he  afterwards  discov- 


48 


ered  was  the  Lord's  Prayer  in  English, 
and  on  the  walls  were  two  strips  of  cloth, 
lettered  with  two  texts  written  in  Chinese 
and  English.  The  texts  were,  "  For  God 
so  loved  the  world,  that  he  gave  his  only 
begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in 
him  should  not  perish,  but  have  everlast- 
ing life,"  and,  "  Believe  on  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved." 

Ti  sat  and  listened  as  the  children  re- 
cited. He  did  not  feel  lonesome  here  or 
afraid.  But  how  much  the  other  Chinese 
children  knew!  The  teacher  —  not  the 
same  one  who  had  brought  him  to  the 
school,  but  another  with  just  as  pleasant 
a  face  —  stood  before  the  children  and 
asked  in  Chinese: 

"  Does  Jesus  love  the  little  children?'' 
and  the  children  answered: 


Tl:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 

Ti  did  not  know  that  these  were  words 
from  the  Jesus  book,  the  book  that  his 
uncle  would  not  read. 

"  What  else  does  Jesus  say?"  asked  the 
teacher;  and  the  children  answered: 


"  Suffer  little  children  to  come  unto 


me. 


"  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  are  weary 
and  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest." 

Ti  listened.  Where  had  he  heard  those 
last  words  before?  The  other  words  that 
the  children  said  were  new,  but  somehow 
he  seemed  to  remember  something  about 
those  last  words.  He  did  not  know  what 
it  was.  He  did  not  remember  that  those 
had  been  the  words  on  the  red  paper  he 
had  given  old  See  Yow  at  the  fishing 
village. 


TI:  A    STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


l»ut  now  the  children  sang,  "Jesus 
loves  me."  Ti  did  not  know  what  the 
i  earlier  was  thinking  of,  that  she  should 
look  so  sober  while  the  children  sang  that 
stuig.  But  when  the  song  was  ended  she 
told  them  that  she  was  thinking  of  a  little 
three-year-old  Chinese  girl  who  had  been 
playing  around  in  a  missionary's  study. 
The  little  girl  hummed  the  words  of 
"  Jesus  loves  me  "  to  herself.  Then  she 
topped.  " He  don't 
love  me!"  said  the 
child  firmly  to  her- 
self. "He  don't!  He 
don't!"  The  lady 
missionary  over- 
heard,  and  told  the 
little  Chinese  girl 
that  Jesus  did  love 
her.  The  little  girl 
answered,  "  My 
mamma  don't  love 
him!  She  don't!  She 
don't!  She  don't!" 

The  teacher  said 
there  were  many 
Chinese  parents  who 
do  not  love  Jesus. 
She  wished  all  the  boys  and  girls  in  her 
school  might  learn  to  love  him  while  they 
were  still  children. 

Ti  heard  a  great  deal  of  talk  against  the 
Jesus  religion,  at  home,  but  he  loved  that 
teacher  who  had  helped  him  when  he  was 
sick,  and  he  listened  very  carefully  to  all 
that  was  said.  Something  told  him  that 
the  Jesus  teacher  woman  and  such  men 


as  the  T'an  kun  and  the  Ho  kun  were 
very  far  apart.  He  did  not  want  his  uncle 
to  become  such  a  man  as  the  T'an  kun 
or  the  Ho  kun  was. 

In    fact,    on 
this  first  day  of       J       f 
school,    Ti    re-       I    fj     t,t!)    i 
ceived    a    good 
many  new  im- 


cause  the  teacher  did 
not  have  to  talk  to 
the  children  in 
English,  but  could  explain  things  in  Chi- 
nese. Yes,  he  heard  a  great  many  new 
things  to-day. 

When  the  teacher  took  the  little  boy 
home  after  school,  she  said  to  him,  "  Did 
you  like  school,  Ti?  Will  you  go  to-mor- 
row, again?" 

Ti  nodded,  smiling. 

The    teacher's    heart    rejoiced.       She 


50 


TI:  A   STOEY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


looked  up  at  the  tall  building  across  the    aunt  to  Ti,  after  the  teacher  had  left  him 
street  in  this  Chinese  quarter.     She  saw  a    at  home. 
Chinese  boy  angrily  strike  a  child  in  a  bal- 
cony.    She  saw  an  old  Chinese  man  look- 
ing out  of  a  window,  a  pipe  in  his  mouth. 


She  saw  the  dragon  flag  of  China  flying  in 


the  breeze,  with  the  emblems  of  one  of 
the    Chinese    "tongs."      High    on    one 


But  the  child  could  not  tell  what  he 
had  learned.  He  could  not  put  his  new 
impressions  into  words. 

"  You  did  not  learn  anything!"  said  his 
aunt. 

"Nei  kong  tai  wa,"  ("You  do  not 
speak  the  truth/')  said  Ti's  uncle,  who 
was  at  home  and  in  a  bad  humor.  "  Ha 
has  learned  something  and  he  will  not  tell 
us  what  it  is!  He  will  grow  up  to  be  like 
the  Yesoo  Yan!" 

The  "Yesoo  Yan,"  or  "Jesus  man," 
was  a  Chinese  shoemaker  Ti's  uncle  knew. 
The  shoemaker  had  become  a  Christian. 

"  His  father  will  be  very  angry,"  went 
on  the  uncle  crossly.  "  And  I  am  angry! 
Ti  shall  not  grow  up  to  be  like  the  Yesoo 
Yan!  If  he  must  go  to  that  school,  he 


building  there  was  a  large  sign  in  English    shall  go  with  me,  too,  wherever  I  will  take 


words,  though  full  of  Chinese  heathen 
meaning.     The  sign  read: 


CHOW  LOON, 

4  FAMILY 
PARENTAL 
TABLET  SOCIETY. 


And  she  thought  of  the  light  burning 
before  the  ancestral  tablet  in  Ti's  home, 
and  in  many  other  homes.  And  as  she 
held  the  little  boy's  hand,  she  prayed  in 
her  heart  that  though  he  lived  in  dark- 
ness, yet  that  he  might  learn  the  truth. 

"  What  did  you  learn  to-day?"  said  his 


him!  Nei  kong  tai  wa!  He  has  learned 
something,  and  he  will  not  tell  us  what 
it  is!" 

Ti  tried  to  think  what  he  had  learned. 
But  he  found  no  words  to  express  himself. 

The  uncle  laughed,  but  looked  at  the 
little  boy  suspiciously.  Who  knew  what 
the  Jesus  teachers  had  told  him  to-day? 

"You  shall  go  with  me,"  he  said,  and 
the  next  afternoon  he  took  Ti  to  a  joss- 
house.  The  joss-house  consisted  of  some 
rooms,  reached  by  flight  after  flight  of 
narrow,  dirty  stairs.  Up  and  up  climbed 
the  child  and  his  unele  till  they  came  to 
the  top  story  of  the  building.  In  a  little 
ante-room  sat  the  temple-keeper,  who 


Tl:  A    STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


51 


sold  the  articles  used  in  temple  idol  wor- 
ship, such  as  candles,  incense  sticks, 
paper  money,  and  paper  clothes. 

Ti's  uncle  bought  of  the  temple- 
keeper  an  offering  and  the  service  of 
one  of  the  temple-keeper's  assistants. 

Then  the 
two  pro- 
ceeded to 
worship.  The 
assistant  beat 
on  a  drum  to 
wake  the 
gods.  On  a 
frame  was 
hung  a  bell 
that  the  as- 
sistant might 
have  used  for 
the  same  pur- 
pose as  the 
drum.  There 
was  a  plat- 
form at  the 
side  of  the 
wall  in  the 
joss  -  house, 
and  six  idols 
were  waiting 
to  be  wor- 
shiped. The 
idols  were  of  wood  or  plaster,  and  there 
was  a  glass  lantern  hanging  in  front  of 
the  gods,  and  in  a  box  at  their  feet  was 


in  the  Joss-house. 


Ti's  uncle  sought  the  queer-shaped 
divining  blocks,  and  threw  them  till  they 
fell,  one  with  its  oval  and  the  other  with 
its  flat  side  to  the  floor.  This 
manner  of  falling  was  propitious. 
Then  the  sacred  jar  of  bamboo 
splints  was 
shaken  till 
one  splint  fell 
to  the  floor. 
Each  splint 
was  num- 
bered to  cor- 
respond with 
numbers  i  n 
the  temple- 
keeper's  book 
o  f  prayers. 
The  assistant, 
with  a  brush 
pen,  took  the 
number  of 
Ti's  uncle's 
e  p  1  i  n  t  and 
gave  it  to 
the  temple- 
keeper,  who 
in  turn  gave 
the  answer 
according  to 
the  number. 
About  the  walls  and  on  the  curtains 
were  Chinese  inscriptions  in  red  and  gilt 
and  crimson.  After  making  offerings 


sand,  in  which  were  small  sticks  of  paper  and  worshiping,  the  two  went  away  from 
and  sandalwood  burning.  There  was  also  the  crimson  curtains  and  the  images  and 
tea,  ready  made,  in  front  of  the  gods.  the  rows  of  brilliant  banners  and  bronze 


52  TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 

fans,  down  the  stairs  again  to  the  city  ing  ghosts  "  of  such  persons  are  supposed 
street.  The  temple-keeper's  assistant  had  to  have  no  rest  in  the  next  world.  Under 
lighted  the  paper  money  and  carried  it  to  some  of  the  tablets  bearing  the  names  of 
burn  in  an  oven  kept  for  that  purpose. 

"  You  shall  not  grow  up  to  be  a  Yesoo 
Yan!"  said  the  uncle  in  Chinese  to  the 
little  boy   as   they  went  home. 
"You  shall  grow  up  to  worship 
the  gods!" 

Yet,  because  of  his  prom- 
ise to  the  teacher,  Ti's  uncle 
did  not  forbid  the  little  boy's 
going    to    the    Christian 
school.    He  would  not  likj 
to  have  the  charge,  "  You  do 
not  speak  the  truth,"  applied 
to  him.     He  had  said  that 
Ti  might  go,  and  the  promise 
should  not  be  broken.    He 
took  the  child  diligently  to 
the    Chinese    joss-house    on 
succeeding    days,    and    one 
day,  in  a  certain  joss- 
house,  he  showed  Ti  a 
little    side    shrine    for 
those  dead  Chinese  per- 
sons who  have  no  sons 
or    other    relatives    in 
this  world  to  offer 
prayers   or   incense 

in  the  dead  persons'         ^BT  women,    at   this 

•nampq       To    this  shrine,  Ti  saw  fans 

ndmeb.         J.O     lllls  Before  the  Shrine. 

shrine  charitable  and    jewelry    such 

Chinese,  who   were  not  related  to  the  as  a  Chinese  woman  might  use  in  this  life, 

dead,  would  come  and  lay  offerings  under  The   uncle  kept   the  little   boy   long 

the  tablets  that  bore  the  names  of  the  de-  enough  before  this  shrine  to  impress  the 

ceased  persons.     Otherwise  the  "  wander-  child. 


TI:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


53 


"  See,"  he  said,  "  what  would  be,  if  you 
grow  up  to  be  a  Jesus  man!  Your  father 
has  no  other  son.  When  your  father  dies, 
there  will  be  nobody  to  burn  incense  for 
him,  if  you  are  a  believer  in  the  Jesus 
religion.  You  will  leave  your  father  to 
be  prayed  for  at  thia  shrine,  and  people 
will  forget  to  do  it.  Yes,  they  will  forget! 
You  will  leave  your  father  all  alone,  all 
alone!" 

The  uncle's  tone  was  very  reproachful, 
and  little  Ti  felt  very  sober.  Surely  he 
would  never  leave  his  father,  his  dear 
father,  to  be  one  of  the  poor,  wandering, 
forgotten  ghosts  of  the  next  world.  He 
loved  his  father,  and  he  went  away  from 
the  joss-house  thinking  grave  thoughts 
for  so  little  a  fellow.  No  wonder  that 
some  of  the  Chinese  children  shut  their 
mouths  tightly  and  shook  their  heads, 
when  the  teacher  woman  spoke  about 
Jesus. 

Yet,  though  Ti  did  not  mean  ever  to 
neglect  his  father,  the  little  boy  could 
not  disbelieve  what  the  kind  teacher  said 
about  Jesus  loving  little  children.  And 
he  was  afraid  to  go  with  his  uncle  to  the 
joss-houses,  for  fear  the  uncle  might  on 
the  way  go  to  some  gambling  place,  and 
he  might  again  see  the  T'an  kun  or  the 
Ho  kun.  It  is  very  difficult  to  trust  one's 
uncle  entirely,  after  being  once  terrified 
by  his  acts.  Ti  would  rather  be  with  the 
teacher  who  had  been  so  good  to  him 
when  he  was  sick. 

His  uncle,  however,  was  quite  satisfied 
that  he  had  greatly  impressed  the  child. 


"  He  will  not  be  a  Yesoo  Yan,"  said  the 
uncle  to  himself  with  a  satisfied  feeling 
of  certainty.  "No,  he  will  not!  He 
loves  his  father  too  well.  I  am  glad  I 
have  showed  him  that  shrine!" 

And  from  that  hour  the  vigilance  of 
Ti's  uncle  began  to  relax.  He  did  not 
know  that  despite  what  man  may  say  or 
do  in  opposition,  God's  word,  when  faith- 
fully taught,  will  have  an  effect.  Ti  was 
having  very  faithful,  tender  teaching  in 
these  days  at  the  school. 

And  Ah  Cheng,  too,  was  beginning  to 
think  very  differently.  For  when  the 
teacher  came  each  day  to  bring  the  boy 
to  and  from  school,  she  often  stopped  to 
talk  with  Ah  Cheng  about  Jesus. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

TI'S    TENTH    BIRTHDAY. 

I  HAD  been  going  to  school 
for  some  time.  The  teacher 
came  one  day  to  take  him 
there  as  usual.  Her  eyes 
were  red.  Ti  could  see  that 
she  had  been  crying.  He  wondered  why. 
She  looked  as  his  aunt  looked  sometimes, 
when  his  uncle  had  thrown  away  all  the 
money  gambling  and  had  come  home  cross 
and  struck  her. 

He  did  not  like  to  see  anyone  unhappy. 
The  teacher,  however,  did  not  say  any- 
thing about  why  she  had  been  crying. 
She  tried  to  control  her  trembling  lips, 
and  she  did  not  talk  about  anything,  all 


54 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


the  time  that  Ti  and  she  were  going  to 
school  together. 

When  they  came  to  the  school-room, 
they  found  themselves  quite  early.  The 
other  scholars  had  not  come  yet. 

Inside  the  school-room,  Ti  began  to  in- 
terest himself  in  some  paper-folding  that 
the  children  did.  Suddenly,  something 
made  him  look  up,  and  he  saw  that  the 
teacher  was  crying.  He  dropped  the 
paper-folding,  and  ran  to  her  and  pulled 
at  her  sleeve. 

"No  cly,"  (cry)  begged  the  little  fellow 
gently.  "  Wha'  fo'  you  cly?" 

The  teacher  could  not  talk  for  a 
minute.  Then  she  sat  down,  and  Ti 
stood  beside  her,  while  she  told  him, 
partly  in  Chinese  and  partly  in  English, 
what  had  happened.  He  could  under- 
stand a  good  deal  of  English  now.  The 
teacher  told  him  that  a  poor  Chinese  girl 
who  was  brought  to  a  mission  ^Home  had 
been  dying  of  consumption,  and  she  had 
said  to  a  teacher,  "I  am  dying.  Stay 
with  me."  The  sick  girl  could  not  under- 
stand English,  but  some  other  .Chinese 
girls  told  her  of  Jesus  and  heaven.  She 
had  had  a  hard,  sorrowful  life,  and  now 
she  listened  and  said  that  she  would  try 
to  trust  in  Him.  But  after  a  while  she 
said,  "  Oh,  I  am  afraid  I  cannot  under- 
stand the  way."  Then  one  of  the  Chi- 
nese girls  prayed  with  her  and  tried  to 
tell  her  how  to  talk  to  Jesus  herself,  so 
she  might  feel  he  was  with  her  and  wanted 
td  comfort  her.  But  the  poor  dying  girl 
lay  -still  a  little  while,  and  then  said,  "  I 


am  afraid  the  door  of  heaven  will  be  shut. 
It  will  not  open  for  me!  I  cannot  see  the 
way!  Who  will  lead  me?" 

They  prayed  for  her  and  told  her  Jesus 
would  lead  her  to  heaven  and  see  that  the 
door  was  open  for  her.  After  that  she 
lay  still  for  a  time  with  closed  eyes,  then 
suddenly  she  opened  her  eyes,  her  face  lit 
up  with  joy,  and  she  cried,  "I  see  the 
way!  Jesus  is  with  me  and  the  door  of 
heaven  is  open!  It  is  all  beautiful  there! 
Oh,  how  beautiful!"  and,  almost  instantly, 
she  died. 

"  Oh,  Ti!"  said  the  teacher,  as  the  tears 
ran  down  her  face,  "  I  am  so  glad  the  poor 
girl  found  Jesus  before  she  died!  She 
had  had  such  a  hard  life,  but  when  she 
heard  of  Jesus  she  believed,  and  I  know 
she  did  find  the  gates  of  heaven  open. 
But  there  are  so  many  others  that  don't 
know  about  Jesus!  Chinese  girls  and  boys 
and  women  and  men,  Ti!  I  want  you  to 
know  and  love  Jesus  while  you  are  a  little 
boy.  Won't  you?  So  many  Chinese 
don't  know  Jesus.  We  teachers  do  all  we 
can,  but  we  are  so  few,  and  there  are  so 
many  to  be  told!" 

The  teacher  bowed  her  head  on  her 
hands  and  sobbed.  Then  came  the  sound 
of  the  steps  of  other  scholars,  and  she 
stopped  crying,  and  turned  to  the  little 
pupils. 

But  Ti's  tender  heart  had  been  touched. 
He  did  not  know  that  all  that  day  there 
rang  in  the  teacher's  ears  the  words  of 
that  dying  Chinese  girl,  "  I  am  afraid  the 
door  of  heaven  will  be  shut.  It  will  not 


TI:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


55 


oju'ii  for  me!  I  cannot  see  the  way.  Who 
will  lead  me?"  To  the  teacher  it  was  the 
cry  of  hundreds  on  hundreds  of  souls  she 
was  unable  to  reach.  She  felt  as  if  her 
heart  would  break.  She  did  not  know 
that  what  she  had  said  to  one  little  Chi- 
nese boy  this  day  would  stay  in  his  mem- 
ory. She  had  said,  "  Oh,  Ti,  I  want  you 
to  know  and  love  Jesus  while  you  are  a 
little  boy,"  and  Ti's  attentive  heart  had 
opened  to  that  appeal. 

He  had  been  learning  every  day  in  the 
months  he  had  attended  this  school.  He 
no  longer  went  home  without  being  able 
to  tell  his  aunt  what  he  had  learned.  She 
asked  him  every  day,  and  now  he  could 
tell  her  little  texts  he  had  learned  in  Chi- 
nese. Very  short  texts  they  were,  but  the 
aunt,  as  is  often  the  way  with  Chinese 
women,  believed  more  the  word  brought 
to  her  by  childish  lips  than  what  the  mis- 
sionary woman  had  said. 

One  night  when  the  aunt  asked  Ti  the 
usual  question,  "  What  did  you  learn  to- 
day?" he  answered,  "  Honor  father  and 
mother,"  and  she  was  much  pleased  that 
he  had  had  such  teaching  in  school,  for 
the  Chinese  believe  strongly  in  the  honor- 
ing of  fathers  and  mothers. 

Ti's  uncle  had  forgotten  his  first  fear 
lest  the  little  boy  should  grow  up  a  be- 
liever in  Jesus.  He  was  absorbed  in  his 
own  affairs,  and  he  thought  that  the  child 
was  too  young  to  learn  very  much  at 
school,  after  all.  So  he  let  him  go,  with- 
out fear. 

But  Ti  was  learning  more  than  either 


his  uncle  or  his  aunt  guessed,  although  at 
home  he  of  course  had  to  see  much 
heathenism,  and  one  day,  when  the 
teacher  called  to  take  him  to  school,  Ti 
was  not  at  home.  He  was  absent  from 
school  that  day,  because  he  had  to  go  with 
his  uncle  and  a  number  of  Chinese  men 
and  women  to  the  Chinese  cemetery,  out 
by  the  sand  dunes  near  the  ocean.  They 
rode  there  in  express  wagons,  which  also 
carried  provisions.  Ti  saw  that  the 
cemetery  was  divided  by  white  fences  into 
inclosures.  His  uncle  told  him  that  each 
inclosure  was  for  a  separate  "  tong,"  as 
the  Ye  On  Tong,  or  the  Tung  San  Tong. 
A  small  wooden  altar  was  before  each  plot, 
and  the  provisions  were  taken  from  the 
wagons  and  laid  on  these  altars.  There 
were  a  number  of  whole,  roasted  pigs, 
decorated  with  colored  papers  and  rib- 
bons. 

The  Chinese  bowed  before  the  graves, 
and  set  off  a  good  many  firecrackers,  and 
burned  packages  of  colored  papers,  and 
the  roast  pigs  standing  on  the  altars  soon 
looked  out  through  air  that  was  filled  with 
smoke.  Then  the  people  went  back  to 
the  city  for  a  feast,  since  this  was  the 
twenty-fourth  day  of  the  second  month 
of  the  Chinese  year,  the  time  of  the  Tsing 
Ming  —  "  pure  and  resplendent "  —  fes- 
tival, when  the  Chinese  believe  that  the 
gates  of  the  tomb  are  thrown  open  and 
the  spirits  of  the  dead  are  permitted  to 
revisit  the  earth.  Ti's  aunt  thought 
about  her  two  little  children,  Whan  and 
Hop,  who  bad  died,  and  she  went  to  the 


56 


TI:  A   STOEY  OF   CHINAIOWN. 


cemetery  with  the  other  women  and  men. 
But  though  Ti'  did  not  know  any  better 
than  to  think  it  was  right  to  make  these 
many  offerings  at  the  graves,  yet  he  did 
know  and  remember  what  the  teacher 
woman  had  said  about  the  gates  of  heaven 
opening  for  the  sick  girl,  and  his  aunt 
cried  when  he  told  her. 

The  next  day,  when  the  teacher  came 
to  take  the  little  boy  to  school,  his  aunt 
told  why  he  had  not  been  able  to  go  the 
previous  day.  The  teacher  listened  sadly. 
She  knew  how  much  of  hea.then  customs 
surrounded  .the  child.  But  Ah  Cheng 
looked  at  the  teacher  at  last  and  said  hesi- 
tatingly, "  Ti  say  the  gates  of  heaven 
opened  for  the  sick  girl." 

The  teacher's  heart  rejoiced  that  the 
little  lad  had  told  his  aunt. 

'•'Yes,  Ah  Cheng,  Ti  is  right.  The 
gates  opened  for  her,  I  am  sure.  She 
loved  the  Jesus  who  first  loved  us.  And 
he  loves  the  little  ones." 

These  and  many  other  words  of  comfort 
the  teacher  said  that  day  as  she  lovingly 
talked  with  the  mother. 

"  I  am  so  glad  we  are  keeping  Ti  so 
long!"  thought  the  teacher  joyfully.  "  So 
many  parents  take  their  boys  out  of 
school,  but  we  are  keeping  him." 

Ti  himself  had  no  intention  of  leaving 
the  school.  There  was  a  class  of  older 
Chinese  boys  downstairs,  and  they  had 
another  teacher,  and  sang  hymns  in  Chi- 
nese, and  read  Chinese  books,  and  were 
very  wise,  Ti  thought.  Sometimes  they 
sang  in  English,  and  one  song  they  sang 


was,  "Do  you  know  what  makes  113 
ha.ppy?  We  are  little  friends  of  Jesus." 

Ti  could  sing  that  song  himself,  and  he 
meant  it;  only  he  never  dared  sing  it 
where  his  uncle  could  hear. 

The  months  slipped  by  till  Ti  was  over 
nine  years  old.  His  father  had  several 
times  wanted  to  take  him  back  to  the 
fishing  village,  but  the  uncle  and  the  aunt 
begged  to  have  him  left  with  them,  and 
the  father  reluctantly  consented.  So  he 
stayed,  and  the  Christian  teaching  went 
on. 

Then  there  came  a  day  that  brought  sad 
tidings  to  Ti.  His  father  had  been 
drowned  in  the  bay,  not  far  from  the  Chi- 
nese fishing-hamlet.  He  would  never  see 
his  father  alive  again. 

The  little  boy  cried  bitterly,  for  he 
loved  his  father.  For  a  little  while  he 
was  taken  from  school,  and  the  teacher 
was  very  anxious,  for  she  was  afraid  his 
uncle  would  never  let  him  come  back 
again.  His  mother  had  died  several  years 
ago,  when  he  was  quite  small,  and  now  he 
would  probably  live  continually  with  his 
aunt  and  uncle,  and  the  teacher  knew 
that  the  uncle  did  not  like  the  school. 

But  after  a  while,  Ti  came  back  to 
school  with  a  sober  little  face  and  a  small 
white  cord,  as  an  emblem  of  mourning, 
braided  into  his  queue.  The  teacher 
knew  that  at  his  uncle's  home  the  child 
was  made  to  worship  before  the  ancestral 
tablet,  into  which,  according  to  Chinese 
belief,  it  was  supposed  that  part  of  the 
spirit  of  Ti's  father  had  entered.  The 


TI:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


57 


Chinese  think  that  every  spirit  has  three 
parts,  one  that  goes  with  the  body  to  the 
grave,  one  part  that  goes  like  vapor  to 
heaven,  and  a  third  part  that  stays  in  the 
ancestral  tablet.  The  teacher  was  sorry 
that  Ti  had  to  worship  before  the  tablet 
on  which  his  father's  name  was  now  writ- 
ten. She  could  not  help  it,  but  she  tried 
to  toach  and  comfort  the  little  boy  as  well 
as  she  could. 

"  God  grant  that  Ti  may  love  Christ!" 
she  prayed  daily  as  the  months  went  by. 
And  at  last  she  came  to  believe  that  her 
prayer  was  answered.  She  felt  sure  that, 
though  Ti  was  a  Chinese  boy,  he  had 
really  begun  to  know  Jesus  and  was  every 
day  learning  to  love  and  trust  him  more, 
and  that  he  was  asking  for  help  to  do 
right. 

Ti's  tenth  birthday  came.  He  had 
learned  very  rapidly  in  school.  He  had 
long  ago  read  through  the  First  Chinese 


aunt  wished  to  insist  on  his  keeping  up 
the  ancestral  worship.  He  tried  to  avoid 
doing  that.  Every  few  days  mock-paper 
money  and  perhaps  paper  meant  to  rep- 
resent clothing  were  burned  before  the 
ancestral  tablet.  It  seemed  to  Aunt  Ah 
Cheng  a  dreadful  thing  if  Ti's  father 
should  be  neglected  now  that  he  was  dead ! 
And  the  teacher  knew  that  her  little  pupil 
was  sometimes  commanded  to  do  things 
contrary  to  what  she  had  taught  him. 
One  day  Ti  asked  her  if  the  gifts  he  of- 
fered could  reach  his  father  in  the  next 
world,  and  if  it  was  true  that  his  father's 
spirit  was  in  the  ancestral  tablet. 

"  No,  Ti,  one  of  your  father's  spirits  is 
not  in  the  ancestral  tablet.  The  Chinese 
are  mistaken  about  that.  But  I  am  glad 
you  love  your  father,  who  is  gone,  and 
think  often  of  him;  and  Jesus  is  glad  you 
love  him.  You  cannot  help  him  by  of- 
fering gifts  before  the  tablet,  but  you  can 


Book,  and  had  been  promoted  to  the  more    talk  to  Jesus  about  your  father,  and  he 


advanced  room  downstairs.  He  had 
learned  and  believed  so  much  of  gospel 
truth  by  this  time  that  his  uncle  would 
have  been  much  alarmed  and  very  angry 
if  he  had  known  it.  But  the  truth  was, 
the  uncle  was  becoming  so  inveterate  a 
gambler  that  he  had  little  thought  or  care 
for  anything  else.  He  was  growing  to 
smoke  opium,  also,  and  he  was  going 
down  morally  and  intellectually.  He  did 
not  know  that  for  many  months,  now,  Ti 
had  been  praying  to  Jesus.  The  little  boy 
never  put  up  the  incense  sticks  before  the 
idols,  of  his  own  accord,  now,  though  his 


can  comfort  you  and  help  you  to  do  right 
in  your  home." 

Ti  listened,  with  his  sober  eyes  intent 
on  his  teacher's,  and  she  saw  that  the  ten- 
year-old  boy  thought  deeply.  He  avoided 
ancestral  worship  all  he  could. 

"  I  am  so  glad  Ti  is  growing  up  with' 
us!"  thought  the  teacher.  "I  hope  we 
shall  keep  him.  We  have  had  him  up- 
wards of  two  years." 


58 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


CHAPTER  X. 

TI    DISAPPEARS. 

NE  day  Ti  stepped  out  of  his 
uncle's  store  and  went  a  little 
way  on  the  street.  Almost 
all  of  his  acquaintances  were 
heathen,  not  Christian,  Chi- 
nese. He  passed  the  old  man  who  sat  on 
a  box  on  the  sidewalk  mending  an  opium 
pipe  (jin  ten),  and  passed  also  the  other 
man  who  cobbled  Chinese  shoes  on  the 
sidewalk.  He  went  across  the  street. 
There  sat  the  fortune  -  teller  behind 
his  red  -  covered,  ink  -  stained  table  as 
Usual. 

Ti  was  thinking  of  something  he  had 
heard  lately  at  his  mission  Sunday-school 
about  fortune-telling.  The  teacher  had 
said  that  a  fortune-teller  could  not  know 
any  more  about  what  was  going  to  happen 
in  the  future  than  other  persons  did.  The 
fortunes  he  pretended  to  tell  must  be  lies, 
and  Ti  knew  that  lying  and  deceit  were 
wrong. 

The  fortune-teller  had  learned  his 
business  in  China  itself,  and  he  considered 
himself  an  expert  in  his  art  when  he  re- 
membered a  blind  fortune-teller  who  lived 
in  China.  Blind  men  there  sometimes 
have  this  business,  but  they  are  under  a 
disadvantage  because  they  cannot  read 
any  Chinese  book  on  the  subject.  There 
are  several  different  ways  of  fortune-tell- 
ing practiced  among  the  persons  of  this 
business  in  China,  and  blind  men  have 
their  own  way.  But  Ti's  city  friend  had 


a  book  on  his  table  which  told  of  a  method 
that  he  pursued. 

Ti  went  up  to  the  fortune-teller's  table. 
He  was  not  doing  any  business  just  this 
moment,  and  he  looked  at  Ti  in  a  neigh- 
borly manner,  as  an  American  might 
look  at  a  pleasant,  well-behaved  small 
boy  who  came  in  friendliness  to  stand  and 
look  at  business.  The  Chinaman's  future 
dinner,  a  tiny  piece  of  fresh  pork,  with  a 
bit  of  greens  that  had  a  yellow  blossom 
like  mustard,  was  in  a  brown  paper  cornu- 
copia on  the  table,  just  as  the  fortune- 
teller had  bought  them  of  the  Chinese 
biitcher.  His  book  was  on  the  ink- 
stained  red  cover  of  the  table,  as  were  his 
writing  pencil  and  a  box. 

"Have  you  gone  to  school  to-day?"  he 
asked  in  Chinese. 

"  Yes/'  answered  Ti.  "  I  go  to  school. 
Very  good  school.  I  read  Chinese.  I 
read  my  Chinese  book.  I  read  English 
book,  too." 

The  fortune-teller  looked  at  the  little 
boy  with  approbation. 

"  It  is  very  good  to  read  Chinese  and  to 
have  Chinese  books,"  he  said.  "  I  have  a 
Chinese  book." 

He  laid  his  hand  on  the  paper  book  of 
fortune-telling. 

"  You  will  be  a  great  man,"  continued 
the  fortune-teller  to  Ti.  "  Perhaps  you 
will  some  day  be  a  fortune  -  teller  like 
me." 

Ti  looked  sober.  He  remembered  what 
he  had  heard  at  school.  "No,"  said  he, 
gravely,  "  I  shall  not  be  a  fortune-teller. 


Tl:  A    S'LORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


The  teacher  woman  says  that  no  one  can 
tell  fortunes  truly." 

The  man  sat  up  angrily.  "  The  teacher 
woman  has  an  oily  mouth  and  a  heart  like 
a  razor!'1  he  said 
angrily,  using  a  proverb 
of  the  Chinese  people. 
He  meant  that  the 
teacher  was  a  person 
who  spoke  pleasantly, 
but  had  a  treacherous 
heart. 

"  May  the  Five  Em- 
perors catch  the 
teacher  woman !"  h  e 
continued. 

Ti  shrank  back.  He 
had  not  supposed  the 
man  would  be  angry. 
The  "Five  Emperors" 
are  certain  five  heathen 
gods  that  are  believed 
by  the  Chinese  to  have 
power  over  pestilence, 
cholera,  and  so  on.  To 
say,  "May  the  Five 
Emperors  catch  you!" 
is  a  Chinese  maledic- 
tion; therefore  Ti 
did  not  like  to  have  the  man  use  it  in 
speaking  of  the  teacher. 

The  fortune  -  teller  sat  and  scowled. 
Presently  a  customer  engaged  his  atten- 
tion. The  customer  paid  his  fee  and 
went  away.  After  this  the  man  was  more 
pleasant  and  talked,  telling  Ti  of  the  for- 
tune-tellers in  China. 


59 

There  came  another  customer.  Ti 
looked  at  him.  Then  he  wanted  to  run, 
for  who  was  this  second  customer  but  the 
man  who  had  been  the  Ho  kun  of  the  fan 


The  second  customer  was  the  Ho  "kun. 

fan  game  to  which  his  uncle  had  taken 
him  on  the  evening  when  the  police  made 
their  raid. 

Ti  shrank  back,  but  the  Ho  kun  did  not 
seem  to  recognize  him.  The  child  stood 
there,  not  daring  to  run  lest  he  should 
draw  to  himself  the  attention  of  this 
dreaded  person. 


60 


TI:  A   STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


The  Ho  kim  wanted  the  fortune-teller 
to  discover  whether  the  twenty-fifth  day 
of  the  month  would  be  a  lucky  day  for 
him  to  do  something.  What  the  some- 
thing was,  Ti  did  not  understand.  The 
Ho  kiin  was  beginning  to  explain  about 
it,  when  the  fortune-teller  suddenly 
caught  him  by  the  sleeve  of  his  "  shorn  " 
(blouse)  and  hurriedly  said  something 
warning  but  unintelligible  to  Ti. 

The  Ho  kun  evidently  took  the  warn- 
ing, whatever  it  was.  Then  the  fortune- 
teller proceeded  to  open  his  box  of  small, 
folded  papers.  Inside  each  folded  paper 
was  written  a  Chinese  character.  The 
fortune-teller  told  the  Ho  kun  to  choose 
two  papers.  This  he  proceeded  to  do  at 
random,  one  at  a  time.  Then  the  fortune- 
teller took  the  two  chosen  papers,  opened 
them,  and  saw  what  the  Chinese  charac- 
ters were.  Now  Chinese  characters  are 
made  up  of  different  parts.  The  fortune- 
teller, according  to  the  rules  that  he 
usually  followed,  divided  the  two  chosen 
characters  into  their  separate,  distinct 
parts.  Afterwards  he  asked  the  Ho  kun 
some  questions  in  so  low  a  tone  that  Ti, 
who  stood  at  one  side,  did  not  understand. 
He  was  not  trying  to  understand,  anyhow. 
His  one  great  anxiety  was  that  the  dread- 
ful Ho  kun  should  go  away. 

The  fortune-teller,  by  some  adroit 
strokes  of  his  writing  pencil,  made  some 
new  words  out  of  the  parts  of  the  Chinese 
characters,  and  then  gave  his  opinion.  It 
was  that  the  twenty-fifth  day  of  the 
present  Chinese  month  was  a  most  un- 


lucky day  for  the  Ho  kun.  Days  that  are 
lucky  for  one  person  are  not  always  lucky 
for  another,  according  to  Chinese  belief, 
but  the  twenty-fifth  day  of  the  present 
month  would  be  the  unluckiest  kind  of  a 
day  for  the  Ho  kun  to  do  what  he  in- 
tended to  do.  The  fortune-teller  em- 
phatically charged  him  to  put  off  doing  it 
till  the  fifth  day  of  the  next  month.  That 
would  be  a  lucky  day  for  him. 

Ti  heard  so  much,  but  he  did  not  un- 
derstand, any  more  than  before,  what  the 
Ho  kun Y  undertaking  was. 

"Do  it  the  fifth  day  of  next  month!'' 
charged  the  fortune-teller  again  and 
again;  and  the  Ho  kiin,  duly  impressed, 
promised,  paid  his  money  and  went  away. 

The  fortune-teller  looked  at  Ti.  For 
an  instant  the  little  boy  thought  that  he 
was  almost  sorry  about  something. 

"You  like  me  tell  your  fortune?"  in- 
quired he. 

Ti  shook  his  head  and  smiled. 

"  Good-by,"  he  said  in  English;  and 
he  hurried  away  across  the  street  to  the 
safety  of  his  uncle's  store. 

He  did  not  know  that  the  fortune- 
teller stood  and  watched  him  cross  the 
street  and  then  muttered,  "  The  fifth  day 
of  the  next  month  will  be  lucky  for  the 
Ho  kun!" 

What  the  Ho  kun  had  come  to  consult 
the  fortune-teller  about  was  this:  Ti's 
uncle,  through  his  gambling  and  through 
borrowing,  had  become  greatly  in  debt  to 
the  Ho  kun,  so  much  in  debt  as  to  almost 
equal  the  value  of  his  store.  The  T'an 


Tl:  A    STOEY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


61 


kiin  and  the  Ho  kvm,  finding  that  he 
made  no  payments,  knew  enough  01 
American  customs  to  resolve  to  put  an 
attachment  on  the  little  store.  Ti's 
uncle  had  really  lost  everything.  Yet  the 
Ho  kun  was  enough  of  a  Chinaman  to 
want  to  consult  a  fortune-teller  about 
which  day  would  be  the  fortunate  one  on 
which  to  attach  the  store.  As  Ti  had 
been  present,  the  fortune  -  teller  had 
warned  the  Ho  kun  not  to  explain  aloud 
what  he  intended  to  do. 

Ti  went  home,  ignorant  that  the  future 
plans  of  the  Ho  kun  would  affect  his  fu- 
ture. And  the  fortune-teller  stood  and 
looked,  and  muttered  in  Chinese  again  to 
himself,  "The  fifth  day  of  the  next 
month  will  be  a  lucky  day  for  the  Ho 
kun!" 

But  the  fortune-teller  had  a  plan  of  his 
own,  and  it  was  because  of  this  hastily- 
conceived  plan  to  help  Ti's  folks  a  little, 
that  he  had  charged  the  Ho  kun  again 
and  again  that  the  twenty-fifth  day  was 
unlucky.  The  twenty-fifth  day  of  the 
present  month  would  be  to-morrow,  but 
the  fifth  day  of  tlie  next  month  would 
give  a  little  time  for  the  fortune-teller's 
plan. 

Ti  was  now  so  large  that  for  some  time 
he  had  been  going  to  the  American 
teacher's  school  and  returning  home  again 
daily,  without  the  teacher  being  obliged 
to  go  and  come  with  him.  He  knew  the 
way  and  felt  quite  safe. 

But  the  fifth  day  of  the  next  Chinese 
month  the  teacher  looked  very  much  wor- 


ried. Ti  was  not  in  school.  He  had  not 
been  there  the  day  before,  either,  which 
was  Monday.  She  had  not  seen  him  since 
Friday  in  school. 

"  I  will  go  around  that  way  just  as  soon 
as  school  is  over  to-day,"  she  thought 
anxiously.  "  There  must  be  something 
the  matter.  I  meant  to  have  gone  last 
night,  as  he  wasn't  at  school  yesterday. 
But  I  had  so  much  to  do." 

Immediately  after  school  she  went  to 
Ti's  home.  She  was  startled  when  she 
went  in.  The  door  at  the  head  of  the  out- 
side stairway  had  been  unfastened,  and 
after  her  customary  knock  she  opened 
the  door  as  usual.  But  the  room  was 
empty.  No  one  was  visible  to  tell  what 
had  happened. 

"Why,  I  wonder  if  they've  moved?" 
said  the  teacher  to  herself. 

A  new,  forbidding  -  looking  woman 
lifted  a  red  curtain  that  hung  before  the 
doorway  of  a  room,  and  the  teacher  ap- 
pealed to  this  stranger. 

"Where  have  the  folks  gone?"  she 
asked  in  Chinese.  "  The  little  boy  gone? 
All  gone?" 

The  woman  only  stared  at  her  and  did 
not  answer.  She  repeated  her  question, 
but  the  woman  did  not  return  a  word. 

"  Perhaps  I  can  find  out  down  in  the 
store,"  thought  the  teacher. 

She  went  down  the  outside  stairs  and 
around  to  the  front  of  what  had  been  Ti's 
uncle's  store.  There  she  was  disturbed 
to  see  new  faces.  Ti  and  his  uncle  and 
aunt  were  not  there.  A  Chinaman  with  a 


62 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


hard  face  scowled  at  her  from  behind  the 
counter. 

"Where  is  Ti?  Where  have  they  all 
gone?"  she  asked  anxiously. 

The  Chinaman  shook  his  head  sullenly. 

"Don't  you  know?"  she  asked. 

The  Chinaman  shook  his  head  and 
scowled  harder.  He  was  the  man  who 
had  been  Ho  kun  in  the  fan  fan  game  in 
the  gambling  cellar,  but  of  course  the 
teacher  did  not  know  this. 

"Have  they  moved?"  she  asked. 

"  They  all  go  'way!  Never  come  back 
any  more!"  was  all  the  Ho  kun  would  say. 

The  troubled  woman  turned  and  went 
out  of  the  store.  The  instant  she  ap- 
peared the  boy  Yun,  the  son  of  the  Chi- 
nese newspaper  man  across  the  street, 
came  running  over  toward  her. 

"  Teacher  woman,"  asked  Yun  eagerly, 
"  you  like  know  where  Ti  gone?" 

"Yes,"  answered  the  teacher  quickly. 
"  Where  is  he  gone?  What's  happened?" 

"  Ti's  uncle  gamble,  gamble  all  the 
time,"  explained  Yun  in  English.  "  Get 
gleat  debt  to  Ho  kun  man!  Ti's  uncle 
take  Ti  and  his  aunt  and  go  'way  off  to 
China  on  China  steamer  this  morning! 
Never  come  ba.ck  to  Cal'forn'a  any  more! 
They  go  on  China  steamer  this  morning!'' 

"Gone  to  China!"  exclaimed  the 
startled  teacher. 

She  knew  a  steamer  had  really  started 
for  China  that  morning.  It  was  steamer 
day. 

Yun  nodded.  "  They  go  China  this 
morning!"  he  said. 


For  an  instant  the  teacher  was  over- 
whelmed. Then  she  recollected  that  no 
Chinaman  who  was  in  debt  could  go  to 
China  without  first  paying  his  creditors, 
and  Yun  had  just  said  that  Ti's  uncle 
had  been  in  debt  to  the  Ho  kiin. 

"  How  could  Ti's  uncle  go  if  he  owed 
the  Ho  kun  man?"  asked  the  teacher. 
"  Every  steamer  day  the  ship  agent  stands 
one  side  the  gang-plank  to  take  steamer 
tickets,  and  the  Six  Chinese  Companies' 
man  stands  the  other  side  to  take  each 
Chinaman's  release  ticket,  showing  he 
has  paid  his  obligations  to  the  company 
that  represents  his  province  in  Canton. 
Ti's  uncle  couldn't  leave  America  without 
that  release  ticket.  The  Six  Companies 
wouldn't  allow  it.  He  must  have  paid  his 
debts  to  the  Ho  kun  man  somehow,  or  he 
can't  have  gone." 

Yun  stood  silent.  The  teacher  looked 
gravely  at  him. 

"  Oh,"  she  said  suddenly,  "  I  see  now 
how  it  was!  Those  Chinamen  who  have 
the  store  now  must  have  bought  it,  and  so 
Ti's  uncle  had  money  to  pay  his  debts; 
or  else  the  Chinamen  took  the  store  in* 
stead  of  his  paying  them.  Perhaps  that 
was  the  way  he  got  out  of  debt  and  could 
go  to  China." 

"Yes,"  said  Yun  readily,  "they  go  to 
China  this  morning  on  steamer." 

The  teacher  had  no  doubt  of  the  story 
now.  Ti's  folks  had  gone  to  China.  And 
the  little  boy  was  gone! 

Her  face  was  pale  and  startled  as  she 
stood  there.  She  did  not  know  this  was 


Tl:  A    STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


63 


a  lie  that  the  Chinese  fortune-teller,  who 
had  a  grudge  against  her  because  she  did 
not  approve  of  his  business,  had  sent  Yun 
to  tell.  The  fortune-teller  knew  the 
teacher  would  feel  badly  over  TTs  going 
so  far  away  as  China.  Yun  did  not  really 
knew  where  he  had  gone.  He  suspected 
he  was  telling  a  lie,  but  he  thought  it  was 
well  to  obey  the  fortune-teller,  and, 
brought  up  in  a  heathen  home,  he  had 
little  scruple  about  telling  the  teacher 
a  ke. 

"  They  must  have  kept  it  a  secret  from 
Ti  until  the  very  last  that  he  and  they 
were  going  to  China,"  said  the  teacher. 
"  He  could  not  have  known  it,  or  he 
would  have  told  me  in  school  last  week. 
This  is  Tuesday,  and  he  was  not  at  school . 
yesterday/  I  have  not  seen  him  since 
Friday.  If  he  had  known  then  that  he 
was  going  away,  he  would  have  said  good- 
by  to  me.  Gone  to  China!  Poor  little 
Ti!" 

She  did  not  doubt  the  story,  for  she  had 
seen  other  scholars  vanish  as  summarily 
from  her  school.  But  she  had  so  hoped 
to  keep  Ti!  She  felt  stunned,  over- 
whelmed, as  she  turned  away.  She  did 
not  know  that  the  fortune  -  teller  was 
watching.  Yun  went  away. 

"  Probably  Ti's  uncle  was  afraid  T 
would  say  some  last  words  about  Jesus 
that  the  child  would  remember,"  she 
thought.  "  The  uncle  and  aunt  didn't 
want  me  to  know  he  was  going." 

The  teacher  looked  blankly  at  the  Chi- 
nese red  papers  and  great  lanterns.  She 


saw  afar  the  table  of  the  apparently 
oblivious  fortune-teller.  Then  she  did 
not  see  anything  clearly,  because  of  the 
rush  of  tears  that  blinded  her.  It  seemed 
as  if  the  great  sea  of  heathenism  had 
risen  and  swept  away  bright,  loving,  stu- 
dious Ti.  She  remembered  the  joss-house 
of  the  "  Queen  of  Heaven  "  on  the  next 
street.  But  oh,  with  all  the  heathenism 
of  this  Chinese  quarter,  how  much  darker 
was  China  itself!  And  Ti  was  on  the  way 
there,  perhaps  never  again  to  hear  a  word 
about  Christ!  What  would  become  of 
him,  little  Ti,  who  had  grown  so  dear  to 
his  teachers  and  had  seemed  to  open  his 
heart  so  readily  to  Christianity?  Here, 
Christians  could  penetrate  Chinatown. 
In  China  there  might  not  be  a  Christian 
or  a  missionary  that  he  could  see! 

"  Oh,  my  little  scholar!  My  little  Ti!" 
she  cried.  "  I  can't  help  you  any  more! 
I'm  afraid  I  sha'n't  ever  see  you  again! 
Oh,  God  keep  you,  in  the  world  of  hea- 
thenism! God  help  you  not  to  forget 
Jesus!  Oh,  dear  little  Ti,  God  keep 
you!" 

With  sorrowful  heart  the  teacher  went 
away.  She  could  only  ask  God  to  care  for 
Ti  wherever  he  was. 

The  teacher,  however,  had  been  greatly 
deceived  as  to  Ti's  present  whereabouts-. 
He  was  not  going  to  China  at  all.  What 
had  happened  really  was  this:  The  even* 
ing  of  the  day  on  which  the  fortune-teller 
had  been  consulted  by  the  Ho  kun  as  to 
the  luckiness  or  unluckiness  of  the 
twenty-fifth  day  for  putting  an  attachr 


64 


merit  on  Ti's  uncle's  store,  the  fortune- 
teller ate  his  supper  as  usual,  and  then  in 
the  darkness  secretly  wended  his  way  to 
see  Ti's  uncle.  He  did  not  usually  tell 
the  secrets  intrusted  to  him  hy  customers, 
but  he  liked  Ti  and  was  not  unwilling  to 
help  his  folks  a  little. 

Ti's  uncle  was  ignorant  of  the  fact  that 
any  attachment  was  to  be  placed  on  his 
store.  This  evening  the  fortune-teller 
told  him  just  what  the  Ho  kun  intended 
to  do  on  the  fifth  of  next  month.  The 
fortune-teller  could  not  help  him  by  let- 
ting him  have  money,  but  he  suggested 
that  if  there  was  anything  special  that  he 
would  like  to  save  before  that  attachment 
was  put  on  his  store,  he  would  do  well  to 
save  it  before  the  fifth  of  next  month. 

Ti's  uncle  was  greatly  excited  over  the 
bad  news.  He  did  not  know  how  he 
could  get  any  money  to  pay  the  Ho  kun, 
for  the  amount  needed  was  large.  The 
fortune-teller  said  that  the  reason  he  had 
told  the  Ho  kun  to  wait  till  the  fifth  of 
next  month  was  because  he  knew  that 
was  the  day  a  steamer  sailed  for  China, 
and  he  also  knew  that  the  junk  from  the 
Chinese  fishing  village  up  the  bay  would 
probably  come  down  to  the  city  the  third 


Tl:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 

contents  of  the  store  could  not  be  saved 
without  a  wagon's  coming,  and  the  Chi- 
nese neighbors'  finding  out  what  was  go- 
ing on,  and  the  Ho  kun's  probably  being 
told  and  his  rushing  in  and  defeating 
the  plan.  The  Ho  kun  would  not  prob- 
ably wait  for  the  fifth  day  in  that  case. 
So  the  store  must  go.  But,  if  he  did  not 
suspect  anything,  he  would  not  put  on  the 
attachment  till  the  fifth  day  of  the 
month,  and  meantime  Ti's  uncle  might 
secretly  save  something. 

"You  keep  still!  Don't  tell  the 
neighbors  you  are  going!  Don't  tell 
Ti!"  warned  the  fortune-teller  in  Chinese. 
"He  might  tell  his  teacher!  You  keep 
still!  When  junk  comes,  you  have  things 
ready  and  you  go  quick  at  night  when  no- 
body see!" 

This  plan  was  carried  out.  Ti's  uncle 
watched  for  the  junk.  The  third  evening 
of  the  next  month,  greatly  excited,  he 
hurried  back  from  the  wharves  to  tell  his 
folks  the  junk  had  come.  That  was  the 
first  Ti  knew  about  the  plan  of  moving. 
None  of  the  neighbors  knew.  Secretly 
in  the  dark  Ti's  uncle  hurried  such  things 
to  the  junk  as  he  could  carry.  He  re- 
turned, hurried  Ah  Cheng  and  the  little 


or  fourth  day  of  the  month,  as  there  were    boy  out  in  the  evening  darkness,  and  hast- 


one  or  two  Chinese  from  the  fishing-ham- 
let who  wanted  to  go  to  China  the  fifth 
day.  He  suggested  to  the  uncle  that  the 
best  way  would  be  to  send  his  wife  and  Ti 
back  to  the  fishing  village  by  the  junk, 
and  they  could  carry  whatever  valuables 
could  be  saved  from  the  store.  The  main 


ened  to  the  wharves.  It  was  a  breathless 
hour,  for  he  knew  he  was  saving  some 
things  that  the  Ho  kun  expected  to  put 
an  attachment  upon. 

Ah  Cheng  and  Ti  and  the  bundles 
reached  the  junk,  and  Ti's  uncle  breathed 
more  freely.  He  stayed  on  board  that 


Tl:  A   STOMT  OF   CHINATOWN. 


65 


night.     The  junk,  having  delivered  at  the 
city  the  passengers  who  expected  to  go  to 


had  no  intention  of  telling  the  teacher 
anything.       He    had    only    promised   in 


China  the  fifth,  would  now  sail  back  to    order  to  make  Ti  stop  begging.     Neither 


the  Chinese  fishing  -  hamlet  the  next 
morning,  the  morning  of  the  fourth,  not 
waiting  till  the  China  steamer  sailed. 

Ti's  uncle  would  not  go  to  the  fishing- 
hamlet.  He  would  stay  behind  in  the 
city.  He  hoped  to  go  to  China  in  some 
way,  after  he  had  given  up  the  store  to 
satisfy  his  creditors.  He  could  not  go  by 
this  steamer,  for  he  must  earn  his  passage 
money  yet,  and  satisfy  two  other  creditors 
for  small  sums  before  he  could  go.  But 
he  had  been  wanting  to  go  to  see  his  old 
father  and  mother,  and  now  would  leave 
Ti  and  Ah  Cheng  with  the  other  uncle, 
Lum  Lee,  and  his  folks  at  the  Chinese 
fishing  village. 

In  this  hurried,  breathless  going,  there 


had  he  any  intention  of  telling  any  one 
where  his  wife  and  Ti  had  gone.  As 
soon  as  the  Ho  kun  and  the  T'an  kun 
put  the  attachment  on  the  store  the  fifth 
day  of  the  month,  Ti's  uncle  vanished. 
The  T'an  kun  and  the  Ho  kun  took  pos- 
session, and  the  teacher  received  no  in- 
formation from  the  uncle  about  the  little 
boy's  destination. 

In  the  succeeding  days  the  teacher 
fully  believed  that  Ti  had  gone  to  China. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  not  even  his  uncle 
had  gone  to  China  yet,  for  he  was  par- 
tially engaged-  in  opium  smoking,  to  help 
him  forget  the  mortifying  fact  of  his  hav- 
ing lost  his  store,  and  he  was  also  partly 
occupied  with  plans  for  earning  his  pass- 


had  been  no  time  for  Ti  to  send  any    age  money  to  China.     He  did  not  go  near 


good-by   to   his   teacher   at   the   mission 
school.     He  felt  very  badly. 

"  Teacher  woman  not  know  where  I 
go,"  the  boy  told  his  uncle.  "  She  feel 
bad." 

At  last,  when  his  uncle  was  leaving  the 
junk,  early  in  the  morning  just  before  it 
sailed,  Ti  begged  so  hard  that  the  uncle 
would  tell  the  teacher  where  he  had 
gone  and  why  he  could  never  come 
to  her  school  again,  that  the  uncle  prom- 
ised. 

"Yes,"   he  said,  "I  tell 
woman.     I  tell  her  to-day." 

So  the  junk  sailed  away  on  its  course 
and  the  uncle  went  back  to  his  store.  He 


his  former  store,  so  the  teacher  never  met 
him. 


CHAPTER  XL 


TI  IS  TESTED. 


NE  day,  a  while  after  TFs  go- 
ing away,  the  teacher  was 
startled.    With   some   other 
Christian    workers   she   was 
out  on  an  errand  of  mercy 
among    the    tenements    of    Chinatown, 
the  teacher    They  had  not  found  the  Chinese  person 
they  sought.     They  went  further,  down 
a  long,  narrow  alley,  on  either  side  of 
which  were  fish  and  vegetable  stalls.    The 


66 


TI:  A    STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


sidewalks  were  so  narrow  that  the  little 
party  walked  in  the  center  of  the  alley,  on 
the  cobblestones.  They  opened  one  door 
of  the  alley,  and,  as  they  shut  that  door 
behind  them,  they  passed  into  utter  dark- 
ness inside  of  a  building.  They  found 
their  way  up  one  flight  of  stairs.  At  the 
landing,  all  was  darkness.  They  groped 
to  the  right  and  went  up  another  flight  of 
dark  stairs.  They  stumbled  through 
narrow  black  passages.  Here  and  there 
were  little  rooms  like  cupboards.  In 
these  tiny  rooms  on  shelves  Chinamen 
lay. 

"We've  found  an  opium  joint!"  whis- 
pered one  of  the  men  of  the  party. 

It  was  so.  In  the  blackness  of  the  lit- 
tle cupboard-like  rooms  the  only  light 
would  be  that  coming  from  a  wick  burn- 
ing in  a  tumbler  and  illuminating  the 
smoker's  face.  By  the  light  could  be  seen 
the  nut-oil  lamp  (the  dong)  for  cooking 
the  opium,  the  bamboo  pipe  (jin  ten), 
and  the  needle  for  manipulating  the 
opium  (ah  pin  yin). 

The  visitors,  intent  on  the  object  of 
their  search,  hurried  past  these  closet- 
like  rooms.  They  stumbled  in  the  dark, 
wishing  they  had  thought  to  bring  a  lan- 
tern, for  though  it  was  daylight  in  the 
alley,  it  was  like  night  here. 

At  length  the  party  found  a  woman 
who  assured  them  that  the  one  they 
searched  for  could  surely  be  found  in  an- 
other house  in  another  part  of  China- 
town. The  informant  seemed  honest, 
and  there  was  nothing  to  be  done  but  for 


them  to  retrace  their  steps  through  the 
dark  hallways. 

They  had  reached  the  back  of  the 
building.  "  Look  down,"  murmured  one 
of  the  party.  Below,  in  the  narrow  yard 
between  this  building  and  the  next,  there 
arose  a  cloud  of  steam.  "  It's  the  opium 
factory!" 

The  very  yard  below  was  somewhat 
dim,  for  besides  its  narrowness  and  its 
situation  between  the  two  tenements,  it 
was  boarded  at  either  end,  and,  above,  the 
roofs  nearly  formed  a  covering.  The 
party  looked  down  as  well  as  they  could, 
and  perceived,  in  the  narrow  yard,  a  place 
built  of  cement,  in  which  were  furnaces 
for  charcoal.  There  was  the  sight  of  the 
steam  of  boiling  opium  and  a  glimpse 
now  and  then  of  the  charcoal's  red  glow. 
Two  scantily-dressed  Chinese  coolies  were 
kneading  opium,  as  the  water  evaporated, 
in  brass  dishes  that  were  over  the  fur- 
naces. The  coolies  were  strong  men,  for 
opium  -  kneading  requires  considerable 
strength. 

"  The  opium  becomes  more  and  more 
stiff,  so  that  it's  harder  to  knead,"  softly 
said  one  of  the  party.  "  At  the  right 
time  those  coolies  will  use  brass  flatteners 
to  form  the  opium  into  a  thick  cake  at 
the  bottom  of  each  dish.  Then  the 
dishes  will  be  turned  upside  down  over 
the  embers,  and  the  men  will  lift  the 
cakes  every  minute,  and  peel  off  the  skin 
that  has  cooked.  So  each  opium  pancake 
will  make  fourteen  or  fifteen  thinner 
ones." 


Tl:  A    STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


The  party  did  not  linger,  but  stumbled 
back  through  corridors  and  black  stair- 
ways, trying  to  find  the  way  to  the  alley 
once  more.  They  began  to  go  by  other 
little  cupboards  with  shelves  covered  with 
matting.  Lying,  getting  ready  to  smoke, 
on  one  shelf  was  a  young  Chinaman,  who 
seemed  to  be  somewhat  ashamed,  and  ex- 
plained aloud  to  the  party  of  strangers 
that  he  only  smoked  "  one  li  gee  of  opium 
a  day."  One  li  gee  is  twenty  cents' 
worth. 

They  hurried  on  in  the  blackness. 
Suddenly,  as  they  passed  one  of  the  black 
little  cupboards,  a  Chinese  face  dimly  lit 
by  the  light  from  the  dong  shone  from 
the  darkness.  The  teacher  gave  a  little 
cry  and  caught  the  arm  of  the  next  one 
in  her  party. 

"Wait  a  minute!  Wait!"  she  ex- 
claimed. "  I  must  speak  to  this  opium 
smoker.  I  think  I  know  him.  I  want 
to  ask  him  a  question.  I  thought  he 
was  in  China.  I  thought  he  had  taken 
his  folks  there." 

The  party  stopped.  They  knew  the 
teacher  must  have  some  particular  reason 
for  her  request.  Out  of  the  blackness  of 
the  weird  little  smoking-room,  the  yellow 
light  from  the  dong  made  the  Chinese 
head  the  more  striking  as  one  looked  at 
it,  the  only  visible  thing  amid  the  heavy 
shadows. 

The  Chinaman  had  not  appeared  to 
notice  the  party  at  all. 

"You  are  Ti's  uncle,  are  you  not?" 


67 

Has  he  gone  to 


"Where  has  Ti  gone? 
China?" 

There  was  no  reply.  The  sallow,  half- 
narcotized  face  stood  out  of  the  black- 
ness, but  there  was  no  look  of  recognition, 
no  apparent  realization  that  he  had  been 
addressed.  The  opium  had  done  ita 
work. 

"  He  is  too  stupid  to  understand,"  said 
one  of  the  party  in  English. 

The  man's  head,  resting  on  a  wooden 
pillow,  did  not  stir.  The  teacher  knew, 
however,  as  she  looked,  that  she  was  not 
mistaken.  It  was  Ti's  uncle  who  lay 
there. 

"Where  is  Ti?"  she  repeated  more 
loudly  in  Chinese.  "  I  am  the  teacher 
woman.  You  remember  me!  I  was  at 
your  house  when  little  Hop  died.  I  have 
been  there  many  times.  Where  is  Ti? 
Tell  me,  where  is  Ti  now?" 

The  yellow  face,  surrounded  by  the 
heavy  black  shadows,  did  not  open  its  lips 
to  reply. 

It  seemed  to  the  teacher  as  if  she  could 
not  give  up  without  any  answer.  She 
was  startled  and  excited  over  finding  Ti's 
uncle.  Could  it  be  possible  that  the  little 
boy  was  still  somewhere  in  this  great 
city?  If  only  she  could  find  and  help 
him! 

"Just  let  me  try  once  more,"  she 
begged  her  party  in  English.  She  turned 
to  Ti's  uncle  again,  and  took  up  Chinese 
speech. 

Won't  you  tell  me  where  Ti  is?"  she 


asked    the    teacher    clearly    in    Chinese,    begged.     "  Only  tell  me  this  one  thing. 


68 


Tl:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 

Tell  me,  yes  or  no! 


Is  he  in  this  city? 
Is  he  here?" 

She  waited.  There  was  no  response. 
It  was  not  the  silence  of  refusal,  but  of 
stupidity. 

"  It's  too  bad,  but  you  can't  make  him 
comprehend  your  question/'  said  one  of 
the  party;  and  the  teacher  knew  that  it 
was  so. 

There  was  no  use  in  waiting  any  longer. 
The  little  company  went  on,  carrying  the 
remembrance  of  the  vision  of  that  one 
yellow  face  in  the  blackness.  The  visitors 
groped  out  of  the  passage-ways  through 
the  door  at  last  into  the  light  of  the  alley 
again. 

And  this  was  the  teacher's  first  clew  to 
Ti's  whereabouts.  It  was  a  very  slender 
clew.  She  knew  no  more  than  before 
where  the  uncle  had  sent  the  little  boy. 
Certainly  he  was  not  in  that  opium  fac- 
tory, she  thought. 

But  the  fact  that  she  had  seen  Ti's 
uncle  made  the  teacher,  for  the  first  time, 
doubt  the  story  that  Yun  had  told  about 
Ti's  going  to  China.  She  had  supposed 
that  he  told  the  truth.  Now  she  began  to 
look  for  her  little  pupil  daily,  as  she  went 
about  her  busy  work  of  visiting  the  Chi- 
nese women  and  children  in  their  homes. 
She  believed  that  Ah  Cheng  and  Ti  must 
be  in  the  city,  too,  as  long  as  the  uncle 
was. 

"  I  think  Ti  will  keep  on  praying  as  we 
taught  him,"  she  told  herself.  "  And  yet, 
I  wish  I  could  be  quite  sure!" 

Ah!  it  is  so  hard  sometimes,  after  sow- 


ing the  seed  patiently,  to  have  no  oppor- 
tunity to  care  for  and  cultivate  it! 

The  teacher  watched  and  sought  in  vain 
for  some  time,  without  gaining  the  slight- 
est trace  of  her  little  pupil.  Then  once 
more  she  thought  she  had  found  a  slight 
clew. 

It  was  on  the  departure  of  a  steamer  for 
China.  The  teacher  had  gone  to  the 
wharves  to  see  a  Christian  Chinese  family 
and  say  good-by  to  them  as  they  started 
for  the  old  home  in  China  again. 

It  was  almost  time  for  the  vessel  to  sail. 
The  wharf  was  full  of  people,  white  and 
Chinese.  Coolies  hurried  over  the  gang- 
plank. Some  Chinese  carried  their  be- 
longings wrapped  in  matting;  some  had 
baskets  or  sheets  or  boxes.  All  was  bustle 
and  hurry.  There  was  a  laugh  at  one 
Chinaman,  who  had  dropped  his  box  on 
the  wharf.  The  box  had  broken  open, 
and  his  goods  had  flown  hither  and 
thither.  He  hastily  gathered  his  belong- 
ings. He  had  clothing,  and  dried  herbs, 
and  a  box  of  huge  pills.  Hurriedly  he 
crammed  the  things  into  his  box  again, 
and  fled  toward  the  gang  -  plank  of  the 
steamer,  which  was  almost  ready  to  lift. 

The  teacher  had  just  come  off  the 
steamer,  where  she  had  been  bidding  the 
Christian  Chinese  family  God-speed.  As 
she  stepped  off  the  gang-plank  to  the 
wharf,  the  Chinaman  who  had  so  hastily 
gathered  his  belongings  rushed  past  her. 
She  had  only  one  glimpse  of  his  face  as 
he  ran  by,  but  she  knew  him.  It  was 
Ti's  uncle. 


TI:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


69 


With  a  cry  she  sprang  back,  but  it  was 
too  late.  The  Chinaman  ran  on  the  ves- 
sel. The  gang-plank  lifted.  The  water 
was  covered  with  bits  of  papers,  being 
prayers  thrown  by  Chinese  on  the  dock 
for  the  safe  return  home  of  the  voyagers. 
She  called  across  the  water,  but  Ti's  uncle 
did  not  look  behind  him.  He  plunged  in- 
side the  vessel,  out  of  sight. 

"  Oh,"  she  cried,  "  can  Ti  be  on  board, 
too,  and  his  aunt?  They  were  not  with 
the  uncle!  Is  he  going  to  China  alone,  or 
are  they  on  board,  too?  If  only  I  could 
have  seen  my  little  pupil!  If  only  I  had 
known,  when  I  was  on  board,  Fd  have 
hunted  the  vessel  over!  I  did  look,  but 
I  didn't  expect  he  was  there.  Is  he?" 

The  steamer  swung  around.  The 
teacher  looked  eagerly  at  the  crowd  on  the 
decks.  People  were  waving  farewell.  The 
width  of  water  between  the  wharf  and  the 
steamer  grew  greater.  She  drew  a  long 
breath. 

"  Oh,  my  Ti!"  she  said,  as  she  watched 
the  steamer,  "  may  God  keep  you,  even 
though  you  go  where  there  is  no  one  to 
teach  you  any  more  about  Christ!" 

Away  from  the  great  city,  in  the  little 
fishing-hamlet  far  up  the  bay,  the  old  red 
paper  still  showed  its  message  to  the  Chi- 
nese fisher-people  as  they  passed  along  the 
narrow,  crooked  street.  But  none  of  the 
passers-by  paid  any  attention  to  it.  There 
were  various  red  or  yellow  or  white  papers 
about  the  doors  of  other  hovels,  but  when 
the  papers  were  renewed,  See  Yow  had  al- 


ways saved  Ti's  red  paper  with  its  "  new 
words." 

In  the  one  street  Chinese  men  and 
women  were  as  busy  as  they  had  been  two 
years  before,  when  Ti  had  gone  away. 


See  Yow. 

Now,  out  on  the  rocks,  a  boy  was  turn- 
ing some  fish.  By  and  by  he  had  the  nu- 
merous little  fish  all  turned,  and  he  left 
the  rocks  and  went  away,  through  the 
narrow  street,  past  the  little  houses,  to  the 
place  where  old  See  Yow  used  to  live. 
See  Yow  was  ill,  now,  and  he  had  been 
put  into  a  sort  of  rude  shed  back  of  the 


70 


TI:  A   STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


small  hut  he  and  half  a  dozen  other 
Chinamen  had  occupied.  Poor  old  See 
Yow!  He  had  not  been  able  to  walk  to 
the  shrine  for  a  long  time. 

To-day  he  felt  so  feeble  that  he  did  not 
open  his  eyes  when  the  boy  entered  the 
shed.  Ti--for  the  boy  was  Ti  —  went 
out  again,  and  cooked  some  rice,  and 
brought  it  to  the  old  man.  But  he  could 
take  little. 

The  boy  sat  down  at  his  side.  See  Yow 
lay  still  for  a  little  while.  Presently  he 
stirred  and  said  in  Chinese,  "  Tell  me  the 
new  words." 

And  Ti,  who  knew  he  meant  the  words 
on  the  red  paper  outside  the  door  of  his 
former  hut,  repeated  the  "  new  words  "  in 
Chinese:  "  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that 
labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give 
you  rest." 

"  Tell  me  again  what  the  teacher  said 
about  the  *  new  words.' '' 

Ti  straightened,  and  before  he  began  to 
speak,  thought  hard  as  to  all  the  teacher 
had  tried  to  make  him  understand. 

"She  said,"  he  began,  "that  when 
Jesus  lived  here  on  earth,  folks  who  were 
in  trouble  came  to  him  and  he  helped 
them;  and  that  when  they  are  tired  or  sick 
now,  they  can  tell  Jesus  about  it,  and  he 
will  help  them  to  bear  trouble  and  sick- 
ness, 'cause  he  is  never  far  away,  but  close 
beside  us." 

"  But,"  said  See  Yow,  interrupting, 
"how  can  one  come  to  him,  as  the  new 
words  say?" 

"When  we  love  folks,  we  trust  them. 


And  though  we  cannot  see  this  Jesus,  he 
is  with  us.  He  has  helped  me,  just  little 
Ti.  He  makes  my  heart  glad,  for  I  know 
he  loves  me  —  and  I  love  him,  too."  This 
last  the  boy  said  very  softly. 

There  was  silence.  Old  See  Yow 
breathed  heavily,  but  he  was  awake. 

Then  Ti  began  to  sing.  It  was  a  song 
with  Chinese  words,  but  it  told  how  Jesus 
had  come  down  from  heaven  to  show  peo- 
ple how  much  he  loved  them  and  wanted 
to  help  them,  and  that  he  would  take 
them  to  live  with  him  in  heaven,  if  only 
they  would  believe  on  him.  It  told  how 
he  even  died  to  show  his  love.  It  was  a 
song  that  Ti  had  learned  in  the  little  mis- 
sion school  in  the  city.  It  had  very  easy 
words  and  its  meaning  was  very  plain,  so 
that  a  little  child  might  understand.  Oh, 
teacher  in  that  mission  school  in  the  city, 
you  knew  not  what  you  did  when  you 
taught  Ti  that  song  and  the  meaning  of 
the  "new  words"!  You  knew  no  more 
than  did  the  other  teacher  who  years  be- 
fore had  sent  the  red  paper  to  Ti  at  the 
fishing-hamlet,  as  to  what  would  be  the 
result  of  your  act.  But  the  Lord  of  the 
harvest  takes  care  of  seed  sown  for  him. 

By  and  by  Ti  left  Sea  Yow,  to  attend  to 
some  more  fish. 

The  little  boy  met  his  aunt,  Ah  Cheng, 
outside  in  the  street,  carrying  some  salt 
for  the  shrimp-curing.  Ti  and  Ah  Cheng 
had  to  work  quite  hard,  now,  for  Uncle 
Lum  Lee  always  expected  anybody  who 
lived  with  his  family  to  work.  Uncle 
Lum  Lee  was  very  fond  of  money;  he  and 


Tl:  A    STORY  OF  CH1XATOWH. 


71 


his  wife  worked  hard,  and  saved  all  they 
could.  Ah  Cheng  and  Ti  were  perfectly 
willing  to  work,  however,  and  as  Ah 
Cheng's  opium-smoking,  gambling  hus- 
band was  not  present  to  make  the  days 
wretched  with  his  crossness  and  his  blows, 
they  were  not  very  unhappy,  though  often 
very  tired.  In  one  thing  Ah  Cheng  could 
already  see  that  there  was  going  to  be 
trouble,  however.  Ti  was  neglecting  an- 
cestral worship  and  did  not  bow  to  the 
gods.  She  felt  worried,  though  she  had 
not  said  anything  about  it  to  Uncle  Lum 
Lee's  folks.  Ah  Cheng  had  not  learned 
to  believe  in  Jesus  as  Ti  did,  and  Uncle 
Lum  Lee's  wife  was  a  firm  believer  in  the 
gods. 

Uncle  Lum  Lee  prized  the  shrines  of 
the  fishing  village  as  being  places  where, 
according  to  his  thinking,  he  could  dis- 
cover which  were  the  luckiest  days  to  go 
fishing.  Still  Ti,  young  as  he  was,  noticed 
that  the  shrines  did  not  seem  always  to 
give  correct  information,  even  on  that 
subject.  He  did  not  dare,  however,  to  say 
anything  about  it.  He  was  glad  to  have 
been  let  alone,  thus  far,  and  not  have  the 
"  Jesus  book  "  discovered  and  taken  from 
him.  Though  he  could  not  read  the 
Jesus  book  perfectly,  yet  he  could  read  it 
somewhat,  and  he  prized  it.  Uncle  Lum 
Lee's,  folks  did  not  know  that  he  pos- 
sessed it. 

Ti  smiled  at  his  aunt  now,  and  hurried 
away  to  attend  to  his  fish.  The  aunt  went 
on  with  her  salt. 

Back  in  the  little  shed,  old  See  Yow, 


weak  and  sick,  lay  still.  His  withered, 
wrinkled  face  was  very  thin. 

By  and  by,  with  an  effort,  the  old  man 
raised  himself  on  his  elbow.  He  looked 
cautiously  around  the  interior  of  the  shed, 
as  if  to  make  sure  that  no  one  but  himself 
was  in  the  little  room.  Then  he  lay  back 
and  shut  his  eyes,  as  he  had  seen  Ti  do 
when  he  prayed. 

"Jesus,"  murmured  old  See  Yow  al- 
most inaudibly  in  Chinese,  "  Jesus  Christ, 
I  am  only  a  poor  old  fisherman  Chinaman. 
I  have  heard  the  new  words.  Jesus  Christ, 
I  never  heard  them  when  I  was  young.  I 
have  heard  the  new  words  now  when  I  am 
old,  a  very  poor  old  fisherman  Chinaman. 
Jesus  Christ,  make  the  center  of  my  heart 
understand  the  new  words  before  I  die!" 

Slowly,  over  and  over,  with  pauses  for 
breath,  the  old  man  repeated  his  prayer. 

Out  by  the  long  tables  for  fish-drying, 
back  of  the  hamlet,  Ti  worked.  Once  he 
looked  up,  and  the  sunlight  glittering  far 
on  the  bay  struck  his  eyes,  and  the  boy 
thought  of  his  father  who  had  been 
drowned  out  in  that  stretch  of  waters. 
The  lad's  face  grew  very  wistful  as  he 
worked.  He  did  so  wish  that  he  could 
have  told  his  father  what  the  teacher 
taught  at  the  mission  school,  and  could 
have  sung  to  his  father  that  song  about 
Jesus  loving  everyone.  But  just  as  he 
was  thinking  this,  Uncle  Lum  Lee  came 
by.  He  was  in  a  surly  mood. 

"  Work  harder!"  he  said  sharply  to  Ti 
in  Chinese,  though  the  boy  was  already 
working  as  faithfully  as  anybody  could. 


72 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


Ti  redoubled  his  efforts,  while  his  uncle 
frowned. 

Uncle  Lum  Lee  was  becoming  very  sus- 
picious of  Ti.  From  various  things  he 
had  observed  in  him,  he  was  coming  to 
believe  that  the  boy  had  had  altogether 
too  much  teaching  in  that  Christian  mis- 
sion school  in  the  city.  This  money-lov- 
ing Chinaman  thoroughly  despised  the 
unbusiness-like  way  in  which  Ah  Cheng's 
husband  had  lost  his  store,  and  he  also 
thought  that  allowing  Ti  to  go  so  long  — 
two  years  —  to  the  teacher  of  the  "  Jesus 
doctrine"  was  another  wrong  thing  in 
Ah  Cheng's  husband. 

Uncle  Lum  ,Lee  had  not  been  very  dili- 
gent himself  about  worshiping  the  gods 
sometimes,  but  he  despised  Christians. 
He  knew  the  Chinese  saying,  sometimes 
written  over  temple  doors  in  China, 
"  Worship  the  gods  as  if  they  were  pres- 
ent." Sometimes  he  had  doubted  if  they 
were  present,  but  he  had  remembered  the 
common  saying  of  China,  "  It  is  better  to 
believe  that  the  gods  exist  than  to  believe 
that  they  do  not  exist/'  So  he  had  gone 
on  carelessly  performing  the  usual  rites; 
but  now,  roused  by  the  thought  of  what 
he  suspected  in  Ti,  his  zeal  for  the  Chi- 
nese gods  was  reviving  daily.  Angry  in- 
deed would  he  have  been  if  he  had  known 
that  a  few  moments  before  this  Ti  had 
been  singing  that  little  mission  song  about 
Jesus  to  old  See  Yow  in  the  shed.  But 
everybody  had  been  away,  busy  about  the 
fish  and  the  shrimp-curing,  and  nobody 
but  old  See  Yow  had  heard  the  song. 


"  Go,  put  salt  on  the  shrimps!"  said 
Uncle  Lum  Lee  now,  giving  Ti  a  rough 
push;  and  the  boy  went  obediently. 

All  continued  well  until  evening.  Ti, 
having  finished  his  work,  was  going  to  his 
uncle's  hut  to  eat  supper.  On  the  way  he 
met  his  uncle. 

"Go  worship  Poo  Saat!"  said  Uncle 
Lum  Lee  sternly. 

Ti  did  not  answer.  There  was  some- 
thing in  his  uncle's  face  that  frightened 
the  boy.  He  hesitated,  trembling.  His 
uncle  gave  him  a  push  and  went  on,  but 
Ti  knew  he  was  watched. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

TI  IS  NOT  HAPPY. 

IT  WAS  the  first  time  that  Ti  had 
been  commanded  to  worship 
the  gods.  He  turned  and  went 
toward  the  building  where  the 
sails  and  tackle  belonging  to 
the  junk  and  other  vessels  of  the  fishing- 
hamlet  were  kept.  Going  into  the  build- 
ing, he  was  face  to  face  with  the  idol  Poo 
Saat,  revered  by  his  uncle.  Incense  sticks 
were  there.  Ti  stood  in  the  middle  of  the 
sail-room,  and  looked  at  the  idol.  Then 
he  looked  at  the  incense  sticks.  Should 
he  set  up  new  ones  and  burn  them?  What 
was  that  verse  the  teacher  had  taught  him 
in  the  little  school  in  the  city? 

"Little  children,  keep  yourselves  from 
idols." 

There  was  another  verse:  "  We  know 
that  there  is  none  other  God  but  one." 


How  many  times  Ti  had  recited  those 
verses  with  the  other  Chinese  boys  in  the 
teacher  woman's  school!  But  oh,  the 
words  had  not  meant  to  him  then  nearly 
as  much  as  they  meant  at  this  moment! 
What  would  Uncle  Lum  Lee  do  if  he  did 
not  worship? 

"Little  children,  keep  yourselves  from 
idols." 

Ti  stood  and  looked  at  the  idol  Poo 
Saat.  Then  he  sat  down  on  a  coil  of 
rope. 

"  I  will  not  put  up  incense  sticks  to 
Poo  Saat,"  thought  he.  "  I  will  not  wor- 
ship him.  If  my  uncle  does  not  see  me 
for  a  little  while,  he  will  think  I  have 
been  worshiping  Poo  Saat.  I  will  not 
worship,  but  I  will  sit  here  a  little  while. 
How  can  my  uncle  know?" 

Then  he  began  to  feel  troubled.     Was 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN.  73 

He  will  strike  me  very  hard.     He 


me. 

is  so  angry!" 

Then  suddenly  there  swept  over  him 
the  thought  of  Jesus.  He  seemed  to  see 
the  teacher's  face  as  she  had  pleaded  with 
him  that  time  in  the  school-room.  "  Oh, 
Ti,  I  want  you  to  love  Jesus  while  you  are 
a  little  boy.  Won't  you?"  He  could  see 
her  as  she  had  told  him  of  Christ's  love 
for  him.  And  now  he,  Ti,  was  going  to 
put  these  incense  sticks  before  Poo  Saat, 
and  bow  down  and  worship!  He  was  go- 
ing to  do  this  because  he  was  afraid. 
Afraid!  —  and  Jesus  loved  him!  Jesua 
died  for  him,  poor,  sinful  Ti! 

The  great  tears  welled  up  in  the  boy'a 
eyes  till  he  could  hardly  see  the  idol. 
With  a  great  sob,  he  threw  the  incense 
sticks  from  him.  He  flung  himself  down 
on  a  coil  of  rope  and  sobbed  aloud.  He 


it  right  for  a  boy  who  believed  in  Jesus    could  not  worship  Poo  Saat! 


to  let  any  one  think  he  worshiped  Poo 
Saat!" 

Suddenly  he  started.  There  was  the 
sound  of  feet  coming  to  the  sail-room.  He 
jumped  up  as  Uncle  Lum  Lee  came  into 
the  room.  The  uncle  looked  at  Ti,  and 
the  little  boy  trembled,  so  stern  was  that 
look. 

"  Why  do  you  not  worship?"  asked  Lum 
Lee  in  Chinese. 

His  tone  was  a  very  angry  one.  He 
took  some  incense  sticks  and  ordered  Ti 
to  place  them  before  the  idol. 

The  boy  took  the  incense  sticks.  He 
stepped  toward  Poo  Saat.  "  I  must  do 
it!"  thought  he.  "  My  uncle  will  strike 


"  Little  children,  keep  yourselves  from 
idols,"  he  sobbed  in  Chinese. 

For  an  instant  Uncle  Lum  Lee  stood 
and  looked  at  him.  Then  he  sprang  at 
the  sobbing,  frightened  boy,  caught  him 
and  shook  him,  cuffing  him  hither  and 
thither  around  the  sail-room.  Ti  begged 
and  protested,  but  blow  followed  blow. 

At  length  Lum  Lee  forced  him  into  a 
bowed  posture  before  the  idol.  Lighting 
the  incense  sticks,  the  uncle  placed  them 
himself  before  Poo  Saat.  Then  he  struck 
Ti  again  and,  leaving  him,  went  away. 

The  idol  Poo  Saat  looked  on  immov- 
able. The  fumes  of  the  incense  sticks 
filled  the  room.  The  twilight  deepened 


74 


TI:  A    STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


into  dark  as  the  boy  lay  there  sobbing  un- 
der his  breath.  He  crept  away  from  the 
idol,  and,  sore  and  trembling,  lay  down  on 
an  old  sail.  Poo  Saat  could  hardly  be 
distinguished  in  the  darkness  that  envel- 
oped the  room. 

Ti  felt  very  lonely.  "  I  want  the  teacher 
woman!"  he  sobbed.  "  She  told  me, 
'  Little  children,  keep  yourselves  from 
idols/  " 

He  was  afraid  to  leave  the  sail-room 
and  go  back  to  the  tiny,  crowded  house 
where  he  lived  with  Uncle  Lum  Lee  and 
his  wife  and  children,  and  his  aunt,  the 
wife  of  the  uncle  who  had  gone  to  China. 
Ti  knew  that  his  other  aunt,  Lum  Lee's 
wife,  would  not  sympathize  with  him  at 
all.  It  was  only  yesterday  that  he  had 
heard  her  praying  to  the  kitchen  god,  say- 
ing, "0  kitchen  god!  I  pray  you  pre- 
serve my  two  pigs,  that  this  year  they  may 
grow  fat  and  large,  so  as  to  be  sold  for  a 
great  many  cash!  And  then  I  will  come 
and  worship  you!"  And  even  the  other 
aunt  with  whom  Ti  had  lived  in  the  city, 
might  tell  him  he  had  done  wrong  not  to 
obey  his  Uncle  Lum  Lee. 

The  boy  had  had  no  supper  and  he  did 
not  know  whether  anybody  had  carried 
old  See  Yow  any  rice.  He  cried  and 
Bobbed  over  and  over,  "  I  want  my  Jesus 
teacher!" 

He  thought  he  had  done  right,  but  oh, 
it  had  been  so  hard!  He  wanted  some- 
body to  help  him.  The  teacher  woman 
would  be  sorry.  She  would  tell  him  what 
to  oo  if  she  were  here.  How  could  he  live 


with  his  uncle  and  not  worship  idols,  if  he 
must  be  whipped  this  way?  Did  the 
Jesus  book  mean  that  a  Chinese  boy  must 
never  worship  idols  —  never,  though  he 
was  struck  and  whipped? 

"  I  want  my  Jesus  teacher!"  wept  Ti. 

Then,  as  he  sobbed  on  from  sheer  ner- 
vousness and  pain,  there  came  to  the  suf- 
fering child  the  thought  that  Jesus  was 
here,  if  the  teacher  woman  was  not.  He 
lifted  his  tear  -  stained  face  and  looked 
toward  the  idol  Poo  Saat.  The  incense 
sticks  had  burned  out.  Ti  gazed  at  the 
almost  invisible  idol,  and  the  thought 
grew  in  him  that  Jesus  was  really  here, 
and  that  he  need  not  cry  so  very  long  and 
unhappily.  Then  he  began  to  pray.  He 
prayed  in  his  own  words,  as  the  teacher 
had  taught  him,  and  the  comfort  that  the 
little  lonely  boy  needed  came  into  hi& 
heart  as  he  told  Jesus  everything. 

The  sail-room  grew  darker.  The  idol 
Poo  Saat  became  invisible,  and  tired,, 
bruised  Ti  fell  asleep  on  the  old  sail. 

By  and  by  he  woke.  There  was  a  soft 
step  in  the  dark.  A  figure  crept  to  hi& 
side. 

"Eat!"  whispered  somebody,  and  he 
knew  it  was  his  aunt,  Ah  Cheng. 

Ti  ate  his  rice  out  of  the  little  bowl  in 
the  dark.  His  aunt  said  she  had  fed  See 
Yow,  but  the  old  man  could  eat  almost 
nothing.  He  had  seemed  very  happy, 
though,  she  said,  but  she  did  not  know 
why. 

Ti  finished  his  rice,  and  his  aunt  crept 
silently  away  through  the  dark  and  left 


the  tired  boy  to  finish  his  night's  sleep  in 
the  sail-room,  guarded  not  by  the  idol  Poo 
Saat,  but  by  the  One  of  whom  the  teacher 
had  taught  him. 

In  the  gray  of  the  early  morning,  while 
the  fog  yet  rested  heavily  upon  the  bay, 
Ti  came  out  of  the  sail-house  and  hurried 
to  See  Yow's  shed.  Early  as  it  was,  the 
old  man  lay  awake  upon  his  hard  board 
covered  with  a  piece  of  matting.  In  his 
great  joy  he  had  not  slept  much  this 
night.  He  had  found  what  his  soul 
sought.  He  looked  at  his  little  friend 
and  smiled  as  the  boy  came  into  the  shed. 

Ti  came  to  the  old  man's  side  and  sat 
down.  He  had  come  for  comfort,  but  he 
was  unprepared  for  the  look  of  joy  on  See 
Yow's  face. 

"Jesus  Christ  has  made  the  center  of 
my  heart  understand  the  new  words!"  said 
the  sick  man  in  Chinese  faintly  but  joy- 
fully. "  I  am  only  an  old  fisherman 
Chinaman,  but  I  know  the  new  words!  I 
never  heard  them  when  I  was  young.  I 
have  heard  them  when  I  am  old,  a  very 
poor  old  fisherman  Chinaman.  Jesus 
loves  me.  I  have  come  to  him.  The  cen- 
ter of  my  heart  is  very  glad." 

There  was  such  a  look  on  his  face  as  Ti 
had  never  seen  there  before.  It  made  him 
think  of  the  teacher  woman  in  the  city. 

"  The  center  of  my  heart  understands 
the  new  words!"  repeated  See  Yow 
faintly.  "Jesus  Christ  loves  me,  Jesus 
Christ  loves  me  —  me,  a  very  poor,  old 
fisherman  Chinaman!" 

Ti  had  meant  to  tell  his  old  friend  of 


TI:  A    STOET  OF  CHINATOWN.  75 

the  blows  Uncle  Lum  Lee  had  given  and 
the  harsh  words  he  had  spoken.  He  was 
sore  from  some  of  the  blows  still,  but  the 
wonder  of  seeing  the  joy  on  the  sick  man's 
face  kept  the  boy  from  speaking  of  his 
own  experiences.  Suddenly  he  found  the 
tears  rolling  down  his  face.  He  was  so 
glad  for  See  Yow. 

"I  am  glad  for  you!  I  am  glad!" 
sobbed  he;  and  the  old  Chinaman  put  his 
hand  on  the  boy's,  and  the  two  were 
silent  for  a  time. 

Ti  could  not  tell  what  he  felt.  He 
knew  that  See  Yow  had  become  a  "  Jesus 
man."  Oh,  how  glad,  how  happy  a  thing 
that  was!  The  child  did  not  say  a  word 
about  his  own  troubles.  He  had  almost 
forgotten  for  the  moment  that  he  had 
any,  in  the  wonder  and  gladness  of  the 
thought  that  See  Yow  was  a  "Jesus 


man. 

When  it  grew  quite  light,  Ti  went  away 
to  his  uncle's  hut.  Lum  Lee  had  already 
gone  out  in  a  boat  with  some  other  China- 
men, and  his  wife  let  Ti  have  some  break- 
fast, though  she  spoke  harshly  to  him,  for 
she  was  a  woman  of  violent  temper.  Ti 
carried  See  Yow  some  food,  and  then  be- 
gan work. 

But  never  from  that  day  did  Lum  Lee 
seem  to  like  his  nephew.  He  was  cross 
and  abusive  to  the  boy,  till,  as  months 
went  by,  he  even  wished  that  his  other 
uncle  might  come  back  from  China  to 
take  him  away  from  the  harsh  words  and 
blows.  He  was  so  willing  a  worker  that 
Uncle  Lum  Lee  could  not  complain  of 


76 


laziness,  but  he  found  all 
could  in  every  other  way. 

Aunt  Ah  Cheng  was  very  sorry.  She 
shielded  Ti  all  she  was  able,  but  she  told 
him  she  wished  he  would  worship  the 
gods.  Ah  Cheng  was  really  afraid  not  to 
worship  certain  gods  herself.  Under 
more  favorable  circumstances  she  might 
have  been  a  Christian.  But  she  had  not 
had  as  much  good  teaching  as  Ti,  and 
though  he  and  she  sometimes  went  to  old 
See  Yow's  shed  and  talked  a  little  of  the 
"  Jesus  doctrine,"  yet  she  would  after- 
wards assist  Lum  Lee's  wife  in  worshiping 
the  "kitchen  god/'  and  she  still  wor- 
shiped before  her  old  picture  of  the  god- 
dess of  mercy,  Kun  Yam. 

Only  a  few  of  the  Chinamen  went  to 
see  See  Yow  while  he  was  sick.  To  those 
who  did  come  he  spoke  now  of  the  "  new 
words,"  but  the  Chinese  looked  at  him 
and  said  he  had  an  evil  spirit.  One  day 
the  old  man  died  with  the  prayer  on  his 
lips,  "  Jesus  Christ,  make  all  the  Chinese 
understand  the  new  words." 

Then  one  of  the  Chinamen  who  lived 
with  others  in  the  hut  that  See  Yow  had 
formerly  occupied,  went  out  in  a  panic 
and  scraped  down  the  old  red  paper  that 
had  been  pasted  there  so  long  ago,  the 
paper  that  contained  the  "new  words." 
Generally  Chinese  look  with  respect  on 
paper  printed  with  Chinese  characters, 
but  this  was  different. 

"It  is  a  bad  paper,"  said  the  other 
Chinamen.  "It  brings  evil  spirits!  See 
what  it  did  to  See  Yow!" 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 

the  fault  he 


So  the  Chinaman  scraped  down  every 
vestige  of  the  paper,  and  the  wind  from 
the  bay  blew  the  small  red  fragments  out 
of  the  narrow  street  into  the  fields  outside 
the  squalid  little  hamlet.  But  the  red 
paper  had  done  the  work  whereunto  it 
was  sent.  One  soul  had  come  to  know 
the  reality  of  the  "  new  words." 

Down  in  the  city  the  teacher  women 
worked  and  prayed  and  wept  and 
struggled  against  the  heathenism  of  the 
great  Chinese  quarter.  Sometimes  it 
seemed  to  them  as  if  their  hearts  would 
break  over  the  wrong  and  the  cruelty  they 
saw.  They  wept  that  they  could  do  no 
more.  They  never  had  seen  See  Yow. 
They  had  never  even  heard  of  him.  They 
would  not  meet  him  now,  till  that  day 
when  he  would  come  to  them  in  heaven 
and  say,  "  Your  work  reached  even  to  me! 
You  never  saw  me,  but  you  taught  a  little 
Chinese  boy,  and  he  told  me  what  the 
'new  words'  meant.  He  told  me  about 
Jesus." 

But,  alas  for  Ti!  As  the  months  went 
by  after  old  See  Yow's  death,  and  Uncle 
Lum  Lee  continued  to  be  so  harsh  and  to 
strike  him  so  many  times  for  not  worship- 
ing before  the  idols,  the  boy  gradually  al- 
most ceased  to  pray  to  Jesus  for  help  to 
be  a  true  Christian.  Whipped  and  un- 
kindly treated,  the  little  lad  lost  courage. 
At  last  he  bowed  before  the  idols,  he  put 
up  the  incense  sticks,  he  burned  paper 
money  before  the  ancestral  tablet.  At 
first,  when  he  did  these  things,  a  very 
unhappy  feeling  came  into  his  heart,  a 


Tl:  A 

sense  of  having  grieved  Jesus,  and  he 
went  away  and  cried.  His  aunt,  Ah 
Cheng,  found  it  out,  and  she  said  to  him: 

"  If  you  and  I  lived  alone  you  could 
worship  Jesus  Christ.  I  would  not  pre- 
vent it.  But  now  we  must  live  with  Uncle 
Lum  Lee,  and  it  is  foolish  thai  you  should 
let  yourself  be  whipped.  Worship  the 
idols  when  he  wishes.  Then  he  will  not 
strike  you  so  much." 

Alas!  The  boy  listened  to  these  words, 
and  he  did  as  Aunt  Ah  Cheng  said.  Not 
that  he  went  and  bowed  before  the  idols 
of  his  own  accord.  He  did  not  do  that. 
But  whenever  Lum  Lee  said  so,  Ti  went 
and  burned  incense  before  Poo  Saat,  or 
went  through  any  other  heathen  rite  of 
worship  that  his  uncle  wished. 

So  the  months  went  on.  Yet  the  boy 
was  not  happy,  for  at  times  a  voice  in  his 
heart  seemed  to  say,  "  Ti,  dear  Ti,  Jesus 
loves  you.  Will  you  not  be  brave  for  love 
of  him?" 


Lum  Lee  was  in  the  sail-room,  before 
the  idol  Poo  Saat,  making  trial  of  the 
Ka-pue.  The  Ka-pue,  or  wooden  divin- 
ing blocks,  were  in  Lum  Lee's  hands.  He 
was  seeking,  after  Chinese  method,  to  ob- 
tain from  the  idol  some  expression  of  its 
will  in  regard  to  a  business  project  that  he 
wanted  to  enter  upon.  A  Chinaman  from 
another  California  Chinese  fishing-hamlet 
on  a  bay  a  great  many  miles  down  the 
coast,  had  offered  to  exchange  his  business 
interests  there  for  Lum  Lee's  here. 

Lum  Lee  wag  rather  anxious  to  mak.o 


STORY  OF  CHINATOWN.  77 

the  exchange.  The  bargain  looked  ad- 
vantageous to  him,  and  he  believed  that 
he  would  make  more  money  at  the  other 
fishing  -  hamlet  than  he  made  where  he 
now  was.  But  he  also  believed  in  consult- 
ing the  gods  before  entering  upon  any  im- 
portant business  change,  so  yesterday  he 
had  consulted  the  idol  by  means  of  the 
wooden  divining  blocks,  Ka-pue,  and  the 
blocks  had  most  unfortunately  fallen  so 
that,  according  to  Chinese  interpretation, 
they  meant  an  unfavorable  answer. 

"  Don't  you  do  it,"  was  what  Lum  Lee 
thought  the  blocks  said,  and  he  did  not 
like  such  an  answer  as  that.  He  wanted 
the  idol  to  approve  of  his  new  business 
plan,  so  he  thought  he  would  try  the  Ka- 
pue  again.  Perhaps  the  idol  would  con- 
sent. 

The  Ka-pue,  or  divining  blocks,  are 
from  three  to  eight  inches  long,  and  each 
has  a  flat  and  a  round  side.  If  the  two 
blocks,  when  thrown,  fall  with  both  round 
sides  up,  the  answer  is  unfavorable.  That 
was  the  way  Ka-pue  had  fallen  yesterday. 


Kdrpue. 

Fallen  with  the  two  curved  sides  uppermost,  meaning 
unfavorable  answer. 


Lum  Lee  hoped  they  would  not  fall  so 
now.  He  knelt,  and  bowed  before  the 
idol  several  times  while  kneeling.  Then 
he  once  again  stated  his  plans,  and  begged 
for  an  answer  from  the  idol.  Then  he 
took  the  divining  blocks  and  put  their 


78 


TI:  A   STOtiY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


two  flat  surfaces  together.  With  a  cir- 
cular motion  he  passed  the  blocks  through 
the  smoke  of  the  burning  incense  a  few 
times,  then  reverently  threw  them  up  be- 
fore the  idol,  so  that  the  two  blocks  would 
fall  between  the  idol  and  himself. 

The  Ka-pue  fell  on  the  floor.  Lum  Lee 
looked.  Oh,  joy!  They  had  not  fallen  as 
they  did  yesterday!  Now,  one  block  had 
fallen  with  its  flat  side  up,  and  the  other 
with  its  round  side  up!  That  meant 


Kdi-pue. 

With  one  block  flat  side  up,  and  the  other  round  side  up, 
meaning  affirmative  or  favorable  answer. 


"yes!"    The    idol    had    consented! 
could    exchange    his   business    with 


He 

the 


other  Chinaman. 

Satisfied  with  this  answer,  and  ignoring 
the  opposite  answer  of  yesterday,  Lum 
Lee  was  not  many  days  in  completing  the 
bargain  with  the  Chinaman  from  the 
southern  fishing-hamlet,  who,  in  his  turn, 
was  persuaded  that  he  could  make  money 
in  Lum  Lee's  shrimp  business. 

The  bargain  being  consummated,  Lum 
Lee  gathered  his  possessions  and  took  his 
wife  and  children  and  Ti  and  Ah  Cheng 
and  sailed  on  the  fishing-hamlet's  junk  to 
the  city.  Ah  Cheng's  husband  had  been 
gone  to  China  for  almost  a  year  now. 
Privately,  Lum  Lee  doubted  whether  he 
would  ever  return,  since  opium  smoking 
and  gambling  were  making  such  a  wreck 
of  him.  He  was  probably  going  down 


lower  and  lower  in  China,  and  becoming 
more  useless  to  himself  and  everybody 
else.  But  if  he  ever  did  return  to 
America,  he  could  almost  as  easily  find  hia 
wife  and  Ti  at  one  fishing-hamlet  as 
at  the  other.  Uncle  Lum  Lee  wanted  to 
take  Ah  Cheng  and  Ti  with  him,  because 
he  had  proved  their  capacity  for  working, 
and  he  thought  he  would  be  richer  with 
two  extra  pairs  of  hands  to  work  for  him. 
Ah  Cheng  and  Ti  had  almost  nothing  to 
say  about  the  moving. 

The  junk  neared  the  city.  It  was  the 
first  time  Ti  had  been  there  since  his  hur- 
ried departure  that  night  almost  a  year 
ago,  for  he  had  not  been  allowed  any  city 
trips  by  his  uncle,  who  wanted  the  boy  to 
work  diligently.  He  hoped  that  now 
Uncle  Lum  Lee  would  allow  him  to  go  up 
from  the  wharves  to  the  Chinese  quarter  a 
little  while,  to  try  to  find  the  teacher 
woman. 

But  Lum  Lee  allowed  no  such  thing. 
He  left  his  folks  on  board  the  junk,  and 
went  to  get  tickets  for  the  rest  of  the  voy- 
age. For  the  fishing  village  to  which  he 
was  transporting  himself  and  his  family 
was  not  isolated  like  the  hamlet  where 
they  had  been  living.  The  new  home  was 
to  be  in  a  Chinese  fishing-hamlet  between 
two  American  towns  on  the  southern  bay, 
and  steamboats  and  American  sailing  ves- 
sels went  to  and  fro  frequently  between 
the  city  and  one  of  the  southern  towns. 
So  Uncle  Lum  Lee,  who  had  known  what 
day  to  come  to  the  city,  found  no  diffi- 
culty in  buying  tickets  for  his  folks  on  a 


Tl:  A    STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


79 


sailing  vessel  that  was  going  to  start  south  allow  his  nephew  to  go  abroad  in  the  city 

that  afternoon.  streets. 

Leaving  the  junk  to  be  taken  back  to  The  little  party  waited  till  sailing  time, 

the    old    Chinese    village    by    the    other  and  the  vessel  moved  away  with  them  out 


Chinese  Wayside  Stand  — Shells  for  Sale. 

Chinamen  who  had  accompanied  the  mov-  through   the   Golden   Gate   to   the   blue 

ing  family  down,  Ti  and  Ah  Cheng  and  Pacific.     After  considerable  sailing,  they 

Uncle  Lum  Lee  and  his  folks  and  his  came  at  last  to  the  bay  they  sought,  and 

household  possessions  formed  a  hasty,  al-  across  its  blue  water  Ti  could  see  a  long 

most  unobserved  little  procession  across  to  wharf  reaching  out  from  an  American 

another  wharf  where  was  the  sailing  vessel,  town.       At  the  wharf  the  ship  stopped. 

Once  on  board  that,  Lum  Lee  would  not  There  were  queer  old  Mexican  buildings 


80  TI:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 

in  the  town,  and  there  were  American  and 
Spanish  and  Chinese  faces.  Beyond  the 
town,  stretching  toward  the  direction  they 
were  to  go,  Ti  could  see  a  great  many  pine 
trees.  Uncle  Lum  Lee  hired  a  Chinese 
laundry  wagon  to  transport  his  possessions 
to  the  Chinese  village,  and  the  whole 
party  rode  with  the  things. 

Ti  felt  homesick.  He  did  not  know 
anything  about  the  new  home  to  which  he 
was  going,  but  he  looked  at  Aunt  Ah 
Cheng's  sad  face,  and  he  knew  that  Uncle 
Lum  Lee  would  be  as  harsh  and  exacting 
in  the  new  home  as  in  the  old. 

He  looked  out  at  the  tall  pines,  as  the 
wagon  passed  on,  and  he  heard  blue-jays 
scream  from  the  tree  tops.  There  were 
American  wagons  on  the  road,  coming  and 


going,  for  the  two  American  bay  towns 
were  only  a  couple  of  miles  apart,  and 
houses  straggled  along  the  way.  The 
farther  town  was  a  great  resort  for  sum- 
mer visitors,  and  the  Chinaman  who  was 
driving  told  Lum  Lee  that  many  of  those 
American  visitors  bought  sea  shells  of  the 
Chinese.  On  one  road  the  Chinese  had  a 
wayside  stand  for  selling  shells  to  the 
tourists  who  were  at  this  season  riding 
hither  and  thither.  Many  of  the  Ameri- 
cans—  some  of  whom  were  visitors  from 
Eastern  States  —  frequently  walked  over 
the  fields,  by  the  path  near  the  rocky 
shore,  to  the  Chinese  hamlet  and  pur- 
chased shells  there.  These  visitors  often 
admired  the  abalone  shells,  and  bought 
"  sets  "  of  them  of  different  sizes.  Also 
there  was  the  trade  of  going  around  sell- 


ing fish  to  the  many  Americans  who  had 
homes  in  the  two  towns  between  which 
the  Chinese  hamlet  was  situated. 

All  this  did  the  laundry  wagon  China- 
man, as  he  drove,  tell  to  Uncle  Lum  Lee 
and  his  folks.  Lum  Lee's  avaricious  eyes 
glittered  with  satisfaction.  Surely  he 
would  make  much  money  in  this  place. 
How  foolish  that  other  Chinaman  had 
been  to  exchange  business  with  him! 
How  much  better  living  in  this  place 
would  be  than  living  away  from  all 
money  -  possessing  Americans  at  the 
shrimp-curing  hamlet,  as  he  had  hereto- 
fore done!  How  well  that  the  divining 
blocks  fell  propitiously  for  the  plan  of 
moving!  Ah,  Lum  Lee  did  not  realize 
that  there  is  One  mightier  than  idols. 
Little  did  he  dream  what  this  removal 
was  to  mean  for  Ti. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

AH  CHENG  CHOOSES. 

OWN"  toward  the  rocks  beside 
the  bay,  Ti  could  see  the 
great  waves  come  splashing 
high,  white  with  foam,  and 
there  was  a  fresh  wind.  The 
wagon  turned  from  the  road  and  went 
down  a  lane  and  across  a  field,  and  there, 
on  the  edge  of  the  blue  bay,  was  the  Chi- 
nese fishing-hamlet.  Fish  were  drying  on 
rough  wooden  tables  back  of  the  hamlet. 
There  was  a  jargon  of  Chinese  voices. 
Chinese  boats  were  beached  on  the  sandv 


Tl:  A    STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 


81 


shore  next  the  rocks.       Two  tables   of 
different  kinds  of  shells,  mainly  great  aba- 


around,  although  there  were  still  many 
rows  of  wooden  -  framed,  canvas  -  covered 
tents  among  the  pines  for  those  people 
who  preferred  to  live  in  tents  instead  of 
houses.  American  artists,  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  often  came  over  from  the 
settlement  and  sat  sketching  the  Chi- 
nese houses  and  boats  and  children. 

Ti  saw  one  Chinaman 
who  had  just  come  in 
from  making  a  tour, 
hunting  abalone  shells 
around  some  of  the  coasts 
of  this  peninsula.  The 
Chinaman  carried  an 


There  were  rows  of  tents. 

lone  shells  with  their  beautiful,  iridescent 
interiors,  and  strings  of  various 
sized  sea-urchin  shells,  stood  beside 
the  street.  One  stand  had  the 
English  sign,  "  Shell  for  Sale,"  evi- 
dently written  by  some  Chinaman. 

Across  the  fields,  beyond  the  Chi- 
nese hamlet,  not  a  very  long  dis- 
tance,  began   the   other   American 
town,   among   the    pines.      It    had 
originally    been    only    a    camping 
place,  but  now  it  had  grown  to  be  a 
town  with  streets  and  churches  and  busi- 
ness houses  and  a  hotel.  Many  people  had 
built    houses    and    lived    here    the    year 


The  Light- house. 

iron  rod  to  knock  abalones  off  the  rocks, 
and  he  told  Ti  he  had  been  away 
around  by  the  light-house,  at  a  certain 


82 


Tl:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


point  situated  far  beyond  where  the  boy  out  in  boats  to  gather  kelp.     Some  of  the 

had  yet  seen.  numerous  children   of  the  village   were 

Lum   Lee   hurried  hia  family  to  the  already  beginning  to  be  traders  in  shells 

house  in  the  loft  of  which  they  were  to  with  the  American  visitors,  and  demanded 

live.     The  house  was  a  very  small  one,  "  fi'  cent  "  for  a  string  of  small  sea-urchin 

and  the  loft  consisted  of  only  two  little  shells, 

rooms,  but  into  them  were  crowded  the  Ti  was  needed  for  various  things  —  to 


The  Chinese  Fishing  Hamlet. 


household  belongings,  the  god  shelf  was 
set  up,  and,  leaving  Ti  and  Ah  Cheng  and 
his  wife  and  children  there,  Uncle  Lum 
Lee  went  away  to  attend  to  his  business 
interests. 

The  houses  of  the  hamlet  were  all 
small,  forming  the  crowded  homes  of 
many  Chinese.  The  fields  spread  widely 
along  the  shore.  There  was  room  there, 
but  the  houses  were  all  huddled  together, 
according  to  Chinese  ideas  of  crowding. 

Ti  soon  found  that  this  was  a  busy  place 
for  him.  Almost  everybody  was  busy. 
Young  Chinese  girls  carried  on  their 
backs  little  baby  brothers  or  sisters,  while 
attending  to  the  fish,  and  the  women  went 


go  fishing  with  Uncle  Lum  Lee  and  the 
other  men,  to  go  over  to  the  American 
settlement  among  the  pines,  selling  fish. 
Moreover,  he  had  to  learn  to  go  with  iron 
rod,  searching  along  the  seashore  rocks  for 
miles,  hunting  for  abalones.  Some  after- 
noons he  spent  sifting  the  white  beach 
sand  through  his  fingers,  hunting  for  the 
tiny  "  rice  shells  "  that  look  like  grains  of 
rice  and  can  be  sold  to  Americans.  Above 
all,  he  must  attend  to  the  fish-drying  and 
the  turning  of  the  multitudes  of  tiny  fish 
on  the  rocks  and  drying  tables.  Moreover, 
he  could  gather  pine  cones  in  the  woods, 
and  sell  sacks  of  them  to  the  campers  for 
fuel.  All  these  ways  of  earning  money 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


83 


for  Uncle  Lum  Lee  were  shown  Ti  during 
the  first  few  days  here. 

The  first  Sunday  came,  and  with  it  a 
piece  of  news  that  startled  Ti.  After  a 
person  had  gone  by  the  village  shrine,  and 
had  passed  along  the  crooked  street  by  the 
houses,  and  had  turned  to  the  right,  there 
stood  a  house  the  use  of  which  the  boy 
had  never  thought  to  inquire,  during  the 
few  days  he  had  lived  here.  On  Sunday, 
however,  two  women  came  through  the 
village.  Ti  supposed  they  were  Ameri- 
cans who  had  perhaps  come  to  see  the 
hamlet,  or  to  buy  shells,  for  he  knew  that 
all  Americans  did  not  refrain  from  buy- 
ing things  on  Sunday.  Presently  he 
noticed  that  the  two  women  were  stopping 
here  and  there  at  the  houses,  gathering 
little  Chinese  children. 

"  Where  you  go?"  asked  Ti  of  one  little 
Chinese  boy,  Hip  Lon. 

"  Go  to  Jesus  teacher  women's  school 
to-day,"  said  Hip  Lon.  "  You  go?" 

Astonished  Ti  could  hardly  believe  it 
true.  Could  it  be  possible  that  there 
were  Jesus  teacher  women  here  in  this 
Chinese  fishing-hamlet?  He  questioned 
Hip  Lon  and  discovered  that  these  were 
indeed  Jesus  teachers,  and  that  they  lived 
in  a  house  up  among  the  pines  over  the 
hill,  and  that  they  always  came  down  to 
the  fishing-hamlet  Sundays  and  held  a 
little  Sunday-school  for  the  Chinese  chil- 
dren in  the  house  near  the  edge  of  the 
hamlet,  the  house  of  which  he  had  not 
thought  to  inquire  the  use. 

"  Oh,  I  go  once  to  Chinese  Jesus  teach- 


ers' school  up  in  the  city!"  exclaimed  sur- 
prised, excited  Ti  to  Hip  Lon,  and  then 
he  ran  to  find  Aunt  Ah  Cheng,  and 
beg  her  to  let  him  go  to  the  teacher 
women's  school.  Little  Hip  Lon  looked 
after  Ti,  as  he  ran  away  to  find  his  aunt, 


Hip  ton's  small  sister. 

astonished  that  he  should  be  so  excited 
over  the  news  of  the  school. 

Aunt  Ah  Cheng  consented  to  Ti's  ex- 
cited appeal,  though  she  knew  Uncle  Lum 
Lee  would  be  angry  if  he  discovered  it. 

So  Ti  went  with  Hip  Lon  and  his  small 
sister.  Neither  of  these  teachers  was  the 
loved  teacher  from  the  city,  of  course, 
but  they  noticed  Ti  immediately  when  he 
came  to  school.  They  noticed  that  he 
knew  one  of  the  songs  sung  there,  and  by 


84 


questioning  him  found  that  he  had  once 
been  a  mission  scholar  in  the  city. 

Thus  began  Ti's  acquaintance  with  the 
teachers.  Much  surprised  were  they  to 
discover  that  he  had  a  "  Jesus  book  "  and 
that  he  remembered  many  Bible  texts  he 
had  learned  in  the  city.  But  there  was 
one  thing  the  teachers  could  not  know, 
and  that  was  how,  now,  in  the  hamlet 
Sunday-school,  the  songs  about  Christ  and 
the  teachers'  words  smote  the  boy's  heart. 
How  he  had  meant  once  to  be  true  to 
Jesus,  and  how  sadly  he  felt  he  had 
failed!  How  many  times  he  had  bowed 
to  idols!  How  there  came  back  to  Ti 
now  words  that  his  dear,  kind  city  teacher 
had  said  to  him!  "  How  good  she  was  to 
me!"  he  thought  repentantly,  "  and  how 
grieved  she  would  be  if  she  knew  that  I 
bowed  to  idols  and  burned  incense  to 
them!" 

Sunday  after  Sunday,  as  Ti  slipped  into 
the  hamlet  Sunday-school,  the  struggle  in 
his  heart  grew.  Sometimes  his  uncle 
would  not  let  him  go  to  the  school.  He 
would  not  have  allowed  the  boy  to  go  at 
all,  if  it  had  not  been  that  during  the 
week  the  teachers  sometimes  bought  fish 
of  Lum  Lee.  Then  he  would,  the  next 
Sunday,  scowlingly  permit  Ti  to  go  to 
Sunday-school,  for  fear  of  offending  a  fish- 
customer. 

But  whether  Ti  went  to  Sunday-school 
or  not,  the  voice  that  spoke  to  the  boy's 
heart  would  be  heard,  and  he  was  un- 
happy. Ah,  how  unhappy  is  a  heart  that 
has  loved  Jesus  and  then  wanders  away 


TI:  A   STORY  OF   CHINATOWN. 

from  him!       Ti  knew  that  if  he  began 


again  to  refuse  to  worship  idols  he  would 
be  whipped  and  cuffed  and  cursed  by 
Uncle  Lum  Lee  and  his  wife,  as  before. 
He  dreaded  meeting  such  treatment 
again.  So,  daily,  he  dissembled.  But, 
oh,  how  unhappy  he  felt  when  certain 
songs  were  sung  in  the  teachers'  school! 
How  he  had  to  struggle  to  keep  the  tears 
back!  It  almost  seemed  as  if  he  could 
hear  his  loved  city  teacher  say,  "  Oh,  Ti, 
I  want  you  to  love  Jesus  while  you  are  a 
little  boy!"  Ah,  the  good  Shepherd  was 
calling  his  little  lamb!  Wandering  Ti 
was  not  forgotten. 

So  surprised  and  interested  were  the 
teachers  in  discovering  that  Ti  had  once 
been  a  mission  pupil  in  the  city,  that  they 
found  out  from  him  the  name  of  his 
teacher  there.  Then,  after  some  writing 
hither  and  thither,  the  teachers  of  the 
hamlet  found  out  the  address  of  his 
former  city  teacher. 

One  evening,  one  of  the  hamlet  teachers 
sent  word  to  Ti  asking  him  to  come  up  to 
their  house  over  the  hill  among  the  pines. 
The  boy  thought  that  perhaps  some  fish 
was  wanted,  or  the  teachers  needed  some 
errand  done.  So  he  went  to  their  house. 
He  was  very  greatly  surprised  to  find  that 
one  of  them  had  a  letter  from  his  former 
teacher  in  the  city.  The  hamlet  teacher, 
on  discovering  her  address,  had  written 
and  told  her  they  had  found  one  of  her 
former  pupils. 

Ah,  how  glad  a  letter  did  the  city 
teacher  send  back!  She  had  thought  that 


Ti  was  in  China,  since  she  had  seen  his 
uncle  going  on  the  China  steamer.  She 
had  pictured  the  boy  surrounded  by  hea- 
thenism. And  now  to  find  that  he  was 
still  in  this  country,  and  that  he  had  been 
guided  to  a  hamlet  where  there  were  other 
Christian  workers  to  teach  him!  Ah, 
surely  God's  hand  was  in  Lum  Lee's  mov- 
ing to  this  place. 

"Tell  Ti,"  wrote  the  city  teacher, 
"  how  very  glad  I  am  to  hear  of  him! 
Tell  him  I  have  prayed  for  him  every  day 
since  he  went  away.  Tell  him  to  be  sure 
to  keep  on  praying  to  Jesus.  He  will 
help  him  if  he  asks  him."  And  then  the 
letter  closed  with  these  words:  "  Dear 
Ti?  do  try  to  be  a  real  Christian!" 

Ti  listened  intently  as  the  teacher  read. 
But  there  was  a  look  on  his  face  that  she 
did  not  understand.  The  boy  was  silent 
a  moment  after  the  letter  was  finished. 
The  tears  began  to  roll  down  his  face. 
Suddenly  the  remorse  that  had  over- 
whelmed him  as  he  heard  the  loving 
words,  grew  too  strong  for  concealment. 
He  dropped,  sobbing,  on  his  knees  at  the 
teacher's  feet. 

"  I  used  to  love  Jesus  in  the  city,"  he 
sobbed.  "Now  I  am  bad  boy  so  long, 
Jesus  will  never  love  me  again." 

Sobbing,  he  told  his  story  —  how  he 
had  gone  from  the  city  to  the  other  fish- 
ing-hamlet to  live,  how  he  had  been 
beaten  by  Uncle  Lum  Lee  for  not  wor- 
shiping Poo  Saat,  how  at  last  he  had 
yielded  and  now  for  many  months  had 
worshiped  Chinese  idols. 


TI:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN.  85 

"Jesus  will  never  love  me  again,  I  am 
bad  boy  so  long!"  wept  Ti  over  and  over. 
"Oh,  I  am  bad!  I  am  bad!" 

The  tears  came  into  the  teacher's  eyes. 
She  knew  how  very  hard  it  often  is  for 
Chinese  to  become  Christians,  since  they 
must  meet  with  so  much  reviling  and  per- 
haps cruelty  from  relatives. 

"  Ti,"  she  said  as  she  bent  over  the  sob- 
bing boy  beside  her,  "  Ti,  Jesus  does  for- 
give you.  He  loves  you.  He  is  sorry  for 
you  and  is  sorry  to  have  you  worship 
idols,  for  they  can  do  you  no  good.  But 
he  wants  you  to  know  that  he  still  lovea 
you,  and  will  help  you  to  be  brave  if  you 
turn  to  him." 

Long  and  tenderly  the  teacher  talked 
with  the  repentant  boy.  She  prayed  with 
him,  and  Ti  prayed  for  himself.  It  was 
broken  prayer,  but  it  came  from  a  heart 
repentant  as  Peter's  for  his  denial.  And 
when  Ti  went  away  homeward  toward  the 
Chinese  fishing-hamlet  he  was  happy  in 
the  thought  that  Jesus  loved  him,  and  the 
knowledge  of  this  great  love  made  him 
feel  strong.  He  looked  up  at  the  evening 
sky  and  said,  not  as  he  so  often  had,  "  I 
am  bad  boy  so  long  Jesus  never  love  me 
again,"  but  instead,  "  Dear  Jesus,  I  don't 
care  what  happens,  I  will  never  worship 
idols  again,  for  I  know  you  love  me  and 
will  help  me." 


It  did  not  take  Lum  Lee  and  his  wife 
long  to  perceive  the  change  in  Ti.  He 
neither  worshiped  the  gods  nor  offered 
mock  paper  money  before  his  father's 


86 


TI:  A   STOET  OF  CHINATOWN. 


tablet.  Uncle  Lum  Lee  struck  the  little 
boy,  and  his  wife  reviled  him  as  one  most 
despised  by  the  Chinese  —  a  son  who  is 
ungrateful  to  his  dead  father.  "You 
have  burned  no  paper  money  before  your 
father's  tablet  for  two  weeks!"  she  said 
angrily  one  day.  "  Your  father's  spirit  is 
poor!  How  can  he  have  any  money  when 
you  do  not  burn  it?  His  spirit  is  poor! 
He  is  hungry!  But  you  do  not  care!  You 
are  wicked!  You  do  not  care  for  your 
father  now  he  is  dead!" 

Ti  did  not  answer.  Once,  such  an  ac- 
cusation would  almost  have  broken  his 
heart,  for  he  still  loved  and  missed  his 
father. 

His  aunt  struck  him  some  half  dozen 
sharp  blows  on  the  side  of  his  head,  and 
passed  on,  her  face  lowering.  How  could 
she  know  that  the  boy,  his  face  smarting 
from  the  blows,  was  praying  silently  for 
help? 

Many  days  were  very  hard  for  Ti,  now. 
Lum  Lee's  wife  told  the  other  Chinese 
about  him,  and  they  treated  him  severely. 
Hip  Lon's  mother  said  sternly  in  Chinese 
to  him,  "  Once  when  I  was  in  China,  my 
father  went  to  the  house  of  a  high  man- 
darin. When  my  father  came  back,  he 
told  us  children  what  he  had  seen  there. 
He  saw  a  picture  of  an  old  woman.  It 
meant  the  mandarin's  grandmother.  Al- 
ways, night  and  day,  the  mandarin  had 
large,  red  candles  burning  before  the  pic- 
ture. Also  he  burned  incense.  His  sons 
and  daughters  came  and  knocked  heads 
to  the  picture.  You  are  poor,  and  you 


cannot  offer  great  red  candles  always  to 
your  father,  but  you  can  burn  paper 
money  for  him!  You  are  a  bad  son  to  ill- 
treat  your  father  when  he  is  dead!" 

Ti  listened,  but  he  did  not  answer.  Yet 
sometimes,  when  the  days  were  very  hard, 
and  he  was  tired  with  much  work,  and 
Lum  Lee  struck  him  and  reviled  him  as  a 
"  Jesus  boy,"  Ti  hid  himself  in  the  field 
and  cried.  But  he  prayed,  too. 

The  teachers  guessed  how  it  was  with 
their  little  pupil.  They  said  a  comfort- 
ing, strengthening  word  to  him  when  they 
met  him  during  the  week.  Uncle  Lum 
Lee  would  not  let  him  go  to  the  Sunday- 
school  any  more,  even  if  the  teachers  did 
not  buy  fish  of  him.  Therefore  it  was 
many  weeks  before  Ti  knew  something 
that  was  coming  to  pass.  It  was  this: 

His  aunt,  Ah  Cheng,  watched  the  boy 
very  closely  now.  She  knew  his  troubles, 
though  she  said  nothing.  Living  in  the 
same  crowded  loft  with  Lum  Lee's  folks, 
Ah  Cheng  saw  that  Ti  would  rather  be 
struck  than  worship  the  gods.  Some- 
times she  guessed  that  he  prayed  in  the 
night  secretly  to  the  "true  God."  She 
disliked  to  have  the  little  lad  struck  and 
abused  so  much  by  Lum  Lee  and  his  wife, 
and  as  she  watched  him  through  the 
months,  his  influence  over  her  deepened. 
Not  that  he  was  a  perfect  Christian.  He 
was  far  from  that.  There  were  days  when 
he  felt  impatient  and  did  wrong,  but  Ah 
Cheng  could  see  that  he  tried  to  do  right. 

Long  ago,  when  Ti  had  been  faithful 
and  had  borne  blows  for  Jesus'  sake,  Ah 


Tl:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


87 


Cheng  was  touched.  If  he  had  remained 
faithful  she  might  .have  been  different 
now.  As  it  was,  his  conduct  began  to 
have  great  influence  over  her. 

One  Sunday  afternoon  the  teachers 
were  surprised  to  see  Ah  Cheng  slip  into 
their  Sunday-school  and  sit  at  one  side, 
listening.  Ti  was  not  there,  and  his  aunt 
seemed  afraid  that  it  would  be  known  she 
had  come,  for  she  glanced  apprehensively 
toward  the  door  now  and  then.  She  soon 
slipped  out,  but  after  that  she  came  every 
Sunday  for  a  few  minutes.  Gradually  she 
stayed  longer. 

Ah  Cheng  never  said  anything  about 
why  she  came  or  what  she  heard  there. 
She  only  sat  and  listened  with  the  chil- 
dren. Sometimes  there  was  so  longing  a 
look  in  her  eyes  that  the  teachers  wanted 
to  speak  to  her,  but  she  seemed  to  wish  to 
avoid  notice,  and  they  were  afraid  of 
causing  her  to  stay  away,  if  they  said  any- 
thing to  her.  So  she  slipped  quietly  in 
and  out,  and  when  she  was  there  the  only 
notice  the  teachers  took  of  her  presence 
was  to  have  the  little  ones  repeat  after 
them  the  plainest  and  simplest  truths  in 
their  lesson,  carefully  explaining  them- 
selves, as  the  lesson  went  on.  For  the 
teachers  knew  that  the  Chinese  woman 
needed  to  have  the  truth  presented  to  her 
as  plainly  as  to  a  little  child,  and  that  the 
things  the  children  spoke  or  sang  might 
reach  her  heart  when  their  own  words 
would  not.  But  the  teachers  were  not 
quite  prepared  for  what  followed. 

One  day,  when  all  the  Chinese  fisher 


people  were  busy,  off  fishing,  or  drying 
fish  outside  the  hamlet,  or  doing  the  same 
thing  on  the  beach,  or  attending  to  the 
many  tasks  always  necessary,  Aunt  Ah 
Cheng  went  swiftly  up  to  the  loft  where 
she  and  Lum  Lee's  folks  lived.  Nobody 
was  there.  She  had  thought  nobody 
would  be  there  this  time  of  day.  Lum 
Lee's  wife  was  off  turning  fish  on  the 
rocks. 

There  was  a  strange  look  on  Ah  Cheng's 
face.  Her  hands  were  trembling.  She 
took  down  her  long-worshiped  picture  of 
the  goddess  of  mercy,  Kun  Yam.  Hurry- 
ing, trembling,  she  gathered  whatever  she 
owned  that  pertained  to  idol-worship  — 
the  incense  sticks,  the  mock  paper  money 
—  but  she  did  not  touch  anything  that 
belonged  to  Lum  Lee's  god  shelf  or  idol- 
worship. 

Hiding  in  her  dress  these  various  things 
of  her  own,  with  the  picture  of  the  god- 
dess of  mercy,  Ah  Cheng  went  trem- 
blingly down  the  outside  stairs  to  a 
near-by  shed.  This  shed,  almost  next  to 
Lum  Lee's  home,  was  used  by  a  number  of 
families  as  a  cooking  place.  There  was  a 
sort  of  open  fireplace,  and  in  this,  now, 
were  some  hot  coals,  for  it  was  not  long 
since  eating  time.  ataooft 

No  one  beside  Ah  Cheng  was  in  e 
shed.  Hastily  she  stirred  the  live  coals, 
and  laid  on  them  the  old  picture  of  the 
goddess  of  mercy.  The  picture  flamed  up 
in  an  instant.  Ah  Cheng  laid  the  other 
things  in  the  flames.  She  waited, 
trembling  all  over.  She  hid  her  face. 


Tl:  A  STOKY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


88 

No  one  came.  When  she  looked  up,  the 
picture  of  Kun  Yam,  before  whom  Ah 
Cheng  had  been  used  to  worship,  waa  re- 
duced to  ashes.  There  was  no  trace  of 
the  other  things  save  a  few  ends  of  incense 
sticks,  and  these  Ah  Cheng  pushed 
further  on  the  coals.  A  slight  blaze  rose, 
and  the  last  trace  of  the  things  of  which 
she  had  made  the  fire  was  gone.  Only  the 
live  coals  waited,  glowing  still. 

Ah  Cheng  covered  the  coals  with  ashes. 
She  rose  and  caught  hold  of  the  doorway 
to  steady  herself.  Then  she  went  away 
again  to  the  fish-curing. 

The  evening  of  that  day,  when  Ti  came 
home  to  the  loft,  he  found  uproar  there. 
Lum  Lee's  wife  was  full  of  fury. 

"  Will  you  be  a  Jesus  doctrine  woman?" 
tshe  screamed  at  Ah  Cheng. 

"Yes,"  said  Ah  Cheng,  quietly  but 
flrmly. 

Then  Lum  Lee's  wife  burst  into  a  storm 
of  Chinese  reviling.  And  when  a  furious 
Chinese  woman  reviles,  she  can  do  it  with 
the  turbulence  of  a  torrent. 

But  it  was  useless.  Ah  Cheng  had 
chosen.  She  was  ignorant  of  many 
things,  but  she  had  chosen  Christ.  It  was 
not  a  lightly  made  resolve.  She  had  known  uncomfortable 
what  the  consequences  would  be.  For  Chinese  in  the 
a  long  time  she  had  been  silently  watch- 
ing, thinking,  wavering.  Now  she  had 
burned  her  gods,  and  she  stood  firmly. 
She  had  found  peace  in  Christ.  There 
was  no  great,  overwhelming  emotion  in 
Ah  Cheng's  case,  but  she  had  trust  and 
rest  and  peace  in  her  heart,  for  Jesus  was 


with  her.  She  had  weighed  the  matter 
carefully,  and  deliberately  she  had  taken 
Christ  for  her  Helper,  though  she  knew 
the  choice  involved  persecution. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

"GOD  BLESS  YOU,   TI." 

UM  LEE'S  wife  was  fairly  be- 
side herself  with  rage.     She 
drove    Ti    and    Ah    Cheng 
out  of  the  house  that  night, 
declaring   that   Christians 
who  burned  the  gods  should  not  stay  un- 
der the  same  roof  with  her. 

As  all  the  other  little  houses  of  the 
hamlet  were  crowded,  Ah  Cheng  and  Ti 
were  forced  to  sleep  that  night  under  some 
empty  fish-drying  tables  at  one  side  of  the 
hamlet.  The  next  day,  however,  Lum 
Lee's  wife  permitted  them  to  come  back 
to  the  loft  to  live.  Lum  Lee  knew  they 
were  good  workers,  and  he  did  not  want 
them  to  stray  from  the  hamlet  back  to  the* 
city. 

But  his  wife  continued  her  vitupera- 
tions, and  made  the  succeeding  days  as 
,s  she  could.  All  the 
hamlet  heard  from  her 
what  Ah  Cheng  had  done  in  burning  the 
picture  of  the  goddess  of  mercy.  Some  of 
the  more  superstitious  women  regarded 
the  act  with  horror,  for  though  the 
teachers  of  the  Mission  school  had  tried 
to  do  what  they  could  in  instructing  the 
Chinese  people  of  the  hamlet  about  Chris- 


Tl:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


89 


tianity,  yet  the  main  influence  of  the  in- 
struction had  been  on  the  little  Chinese 
-children.  Only  here  and  there  was  one 
among  the  women  or  the  men  who  might 
possibly  be  silently  thinking  and  weigh- 
ing the  subject,  even  as  Ah  Cheng  had 
done,  but  who  lacked  courage  to  come 
out  openly  in  favor  of  the  "Jesus  doc- 
trine." 

Several  of  the  more  superstitious 
women  of  the  hamlet  openly  prophesied 
that  some  evil  spirit  would  do  harm  to  Ah 
Cheng.  But  the  weeks  passed,  and  no 
harm  came.  Ah  Cheng  labored  faith- 
fully at  the  fish-curing,  and  finally  Lum 
Lee's  wife  settled  into  a  sullen  acceptance 
of  the  fact  of  her  Christianity.  The 
home  loft  was  a  very  uncomfortable  place, 
though,  usually,  for  Ah  Cheng  and  Ti. 
Two  believers  in  the  "  Jesus  doctrine " 
were  a  constant  invitation,  Lum  Lee's 
wife  believed,  to  evil  spirits  to  enter  the 
loft  and  do  harm.  Yet  there  were  so 
many  Chinese  in  this  hamlet,  in  compari- 
son to  the  small  number  of  houses,  that 
every  house  was  crowded,  Chinese  fashion, 
and  there  was  no  other  place  for  the  two 
to  stay,  had  any  other  family  felt  dis- 
posed to  offer  them  a  home. 

Some  five  or  six  months  of  this  uncom- 
fortable manner  of  living  went  by.  Ti 
and  Ah  Cheng  tried  to  be  faithful.  So 


the  people  did  not  favor  the  Jesus  doc- 
trine. 

One  night,  about  eleven  o'clock,  when 
the  Chinese  hamlet  was  still,  Ti  was 
awakened  by  a  loud  crackling  sound  and 
a  sense  of  suffocation.  The  loft  was  full 
of  dense  smoke.  He  heard  his  Aunt  Ah 
Cheng  crying  to  him,  "Ti!  Ti!" 

There  were  cries  of  frightened  people 
in  the  street  below.  Half  a  dozen  of  the 
little  Chinese  houses  were  on  fire. 

"Ti!"  screamed  Ah  Cheng  in  Chinese. 
"Hurry!  Hurry!" 

Lum  Lee's  wife  was  shrieking.  She 
snatched  up  one  of  her  children.  Ti 
caught  up  the  youngest  child. 

"Quick!    Quick!"  screamed  Ah  Cheng. 

Struggling  through  the  strangling 
smoke,  they  pushed  their  way  out  the  door 
to  the  stairway.  The  steps  leading  down 
to  the  street  were  on  fire!  The  street 
was  full  of  running,  screaming,  frightened 
Chinese  women  and  men,  who  did  not 
know  what  to  do.  Ti  and  Ah  Cheng  and 
Lum  Lee's  folks  climbed  over  the  already 
burning  roof  of  their  loft.  They  dropped 
to  the  upper  outside  top  of  a  flight  of 
steps  of  another  house  that  was  also  on 
fire,  and  escaped  to  the  street. 

Running  across  the  fields  came  Ameri- 
can men,  rushing  to  help.  "  Chinatown's 
afire!"  they  shouted  to  one  another.  Into 


long  a  time  had  elapsed  that  the  neighbors  the  midst  of  the  wailing,  shrieking  Chi- 

had  ceased  to  say  evil  would  come  because  nese  women  ran  the  white  helpers.    White 

of  the  burning  of  the  goddess  of  mercy's  men  darted  here  and  there,  helped  by 

picture.       Other     things     engaged     the  some  Chinese,  finding  old  boilers,  empty 

neighbors'    attention,    though    many    of  oil  cans,  old  buckets.   'Men  ran  to  the 


90 

beach  for  sea-water.  The  air  was  full  of 
cinders.  White  men  and  Chinamen 
climbed  here  and  there,  throwing  the 
water  over  roofs  and  walls.  The  fire  had 
probably  caught  from  the  cook  shed  near 
Uncle  Lum  Lee's  house,  the  shed  in 
which  several  families  were  wont  to  cook, 
and  where  some  one  probably  had  care- 
lessly left  too  much  fire  early  in  the 
evening. 

On  the  edge  of  the  hamlet,  some 
American  women  and  small  boys  who  had 
run  down  from  the  nearest  houses  of  the 
town  among  the  pines,  stood  and  watched 
the  fire.  For  a  little  time,  it  looked  as 
though  a  good  part  of  the  hamlet  of  dry, 
tinder-like  houses  would  be  swept  away, 
but  the  sea-water  and  the  exertions  of  the 
workers  prevailed  against  the  flames  at 
last.  They  died  down.  Only  half  a 
dozen  of  the  little  houses  had  been  con- 
sumed. 

"It's  a  good  thing  none  of  you  lost 
your  lives!"  said  one  of  the  white  men 
cheerfully  to  the  crowd  of  frightened  Chi- 
nese. "  The  fire  must  have  started  from 
that  cook  shed  you  say  was  here,  and 
burned  each  way,  taking  houses  on  both 
sides.  Somebody  left  live  coals  uncovered 
last  night,  and  there  was  a  wind,  you 
know." 

Now,  among  the  company  of  frightened 
women  was  one  who,  from  murmurs  of 
other  Chinese,  caught  the  white  man's 
meaning,  and  she  knew  that  she  had  prob- 
ably been  the  last  person  who  cooked  in 
the  shed  the  previous  evening.  Conse- 


TI:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


quently  she  knew  she  was  very  likely  the 
one  who  had  been  careless  about  leaving 
the  fire  so  that  it  had  crept  to  the  dry, 
wooden  side  of  the  rickety  shed.  The 
woman  did  not  know  whether  anybody 
knew  she  had  been  the  last  person  in  the 
cook  shed.  She  was  very  much  afraid  of 
being  accused  of  being  guilty  for  the  fire, 
for  some  of  the  Chinese  who  had  had 
their  household  goods  burned  were  in  an 
angry  mood. 

But,  in  her  fright,  this  woman  suddenly 
thought  of  something.  If  only  she  could 
make  Lum  Lee's  wife  think  that  this  fire 
had  come  as  a  punishment  for  Ah  Cheng's 
having  burned  the  goddess  of  mercy's 
picture!  Then  suspicion  might  be  turned 
away  from  herself,  if  anybody  had  begun 
to  try  to  remember  who  had  cooked  last 
in  the  shed. 

The  woman  edged  her  way  to  Lum 
Lee's  wife  and  said  something.  In  an  in- 
stant the  latter's  superstitious  fears  were 
aroused,  angry  as  she  was  over  the  loss  of 
household  things.  The  fire  indeed  must 
have  come  from  the  insulted  goddess  of 
mercy!  Had  not  Ah  Cheng  burned  her 
picture? 

With  a  cry  of  hatred,  Lum  Lee's  wife 
rushed  toward  Ah  Cheng. 

"  The  curse  of  Kun  Yam  made  the  fire 
come!"  she  screamed  in  Chinese.  "  It  is 
the  curse  of  the  goddess  of  mercy!  Ah 
Cheng  burned  the  picture  of  Kun  Yam  in 
the  fire!  Now  Kun  Yam  has  sent  the  fire 
to  turn  Ah  Cheng,  and  it  has  burned  all 
our  things,  too!  Ah  Cheng  is  a  Jesus  be- 


Tl:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


91 


liever!  Ah  Cheng  brought  the  fire  on 
us!" 

With  clenched  fist  the  excited  woman 
struck  at  Ah  Cheng,  who  put  up  both 
hands  to  ward  off  the  blow. 

"  I  was  not  in  the  cook  shed  at  all  last 
evening,"  protested  frightened  Ah  Cheng 
in  Chinese.  "  I  did  not  have  a  fire 
there!" 

But  it  was  useless  to  protest,  for  Lum 
Lee's  wife  did  not  listen.  She  had  not 
ceased  to  scream,  "  It  is  the  curse  of  Kun 
Yam!  Ah  Cheng  is  a  Jesus  doctrine 
woman!  She  makes  Kun  Yam  send  fire 
to  burn  us!  She  burned  Kun  Yam's  pic- 
ture in  the  fire,  and  Kun  Yam  sends  fire 
back  on  us!" 

The  cry  of  Lum  Lee's  wife  found  an 
answer  in  some  of  the  more  superstitious 
hearts  of  her  ignorant  Chinese  neighbors 
whose  houses  had  been  burned.  These 
neighbors  began  to  mutter  angrily.  Ti 
stood  by  his  aunt,  who  vainly  protested 
again  that  she  had  not  been  in  the  cook 
shed  the  previous  evening. 

"  Ah  Cheng  brings  fire  on  us!" 
screamed  Lum  Lee's  wife. 

"What  is  all  this  trouble?"  asked  the 
stern  voice  of  an  American  man,  who  did 
not  understand  Chinese. 

Ah  Cheng  was  trembling.  The  neigh- 
bors were  beginning  to  look  angrily  at 
her,  as  they  continued  muttering  among 
themselves.  But  a  quick  form  slipped 
through  the  crowd. 

"  Ah  Cheng,"  said  one  of  the  teachers 
quietly,  "  you  and  Ti  come  home  with  me 


to-night.  This  hamlet  was  so  crowded, 
before,  that  now,  with  half  a  dozen  houses 
burned,  there  will  hardly  be  room  for  all 
to  sleep.  You  and  Ti  come  with  me." 

The  teacher  hurried  Ah  Cheng  and  Ti 
away  from  the  hamlet.  The  fire  being 
over,  American  people  were  returning 
homeward  across  the  fields. 

"Don't  cry,  Ah  Cheng,"  said  the 
teacher  kindly  in  broken  Chinese  and 
English,  as  she  heard  a  stifled  sob  from 
the  poor  frightened  creature  while  they 
hastened  on  across  the  fields  towards  the 
teachers'  house  over  the  hill  among  the 
pines.  "  It  was  not  your  fault  that  the 
fire  came.  You  had  not  been  in  the  shed. 
Kun  Yam  did  not  send  the  fire,  either. 
Some  other  Chinese  woman  was  careless. 
Make  your  aunt  understand  what  I  say, 
Ti.  You  can  talk  better  Chinese  than  I 
can.  She's  too  frightened  just  now  to  un- 
derstand much  English." 

So  Ti  repeated  to  his  aunt  in  Chinese 
what  the  teacher  had  said. 

"  Oh,  Jesus  teacher  woman!"  sobbed  Ah 
Cheng  in  Chinese,  "  Chinese  all  hate  me 
now!  All  say  I  make  the  goddess  of 
mercy  send  fire,  because  I  burn  Kun  Yam! 
All  Chinese  hate  me  now!  But  I  had  to 
burn  Kun  Yam's  picture,  because  Jesus 
book  tells  me  not  to  pray  to  make-believe 
gods  any  more.  Now  Chinese  all  hate 
me!  Ti  and  I  have  no  home  any  more!" 

The  teacher's  heart  was  full  of  loving 
sympathy.  She  remembered  One  who 
had  not  where  to  lay  his  head.  She  re- 
membered the  words,  "  Blessed  are  ye, 


92 


Tl:  A   STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


when  men  shall  revile  you,  and  persecute 
you,  and  shall  say  all  manner  of  evil 
against  you  falsely,  for  my  sake." 

"  Ah  Cheng/'  she  said  gently,  "  do  not 
be  afraid.  Jesus  will  take  care  of  you. 
I  do  not  think  all  the  Chinese  will  hate 
you.  It  is  only  Lum  Lee's  wife  who  tries 
to  make  the  other  women  think  the  fire 
came  from  the  idoPa  anger." 

But  in  her  heart  the  teacher  said,  "  I 
hope  Ah  Cheng  will  not  have  to  go  back 
to  live  with  Lum  Lee's  wife  any  more 
and  be  struck  and  reviled!  It  is  not  as 
if  this  were  a  Chinese  fishing-hamlet  away 
on  the  coast,  far  from  any  American 
Christians.  Here  I  can  find  work  for  her 
in  some  white  Christian  family." 

The  teacher  knew  that  in  the  American 
town  among  the  pines  there  were  many 
comfortable  Christian  American  families 
who  lived  there  all  the  year  around,  and 
in  some  of  them  she  was  sure  she  could 
find  a  place  where  Ah  Cheng  might  earn 
her  living  by  washing  and  ironing,  and 
another  place  where  Ti  could  work,  and 
they  would  be  encouraged  to  keep  on  be- 
lieving in  Jesus  and  being  true  to  him. 

So  the  two  stayed  at  the  teachers'  house 
that  night.  The  next  day,  the  teacher 
saw  Uncle  Lum  Lee,  who  sullenly  said  he 
did  not  want  Ah  Cheng  and  Ti  to  come 
back  and  live  with  his  family.  He  would 
have  been  glad  to  have  their  work,  but  his 
wife  had  declared  she  would  not  have 
Christians  in  the  house  again,  lest  they 
should  bring  more  trouble  on  her  from 
the  goddess  of  mercy.  His  wife's  talk 


had  roused  Lum  Lee's  superstitious  fears, 
too,  lest  the  gods  should  not  prosper  his 
money-getting. 

"  Clistians  make  Chinese  joss  mad!" 
said  he  angrily.  "  Joss  send  fire!  No 
want  Clistians!  Make  me  lose  money,  if 
joss  get  mad!" 

The  teachers  were  thankful  at  heart 
that  Lum  Lee  did  not  want  Ah  Cheng  and 
Ti  around  any  more.  Being  fearful,  how- 
ever, that  he  might  change  his  mind  after 
his  superstitious  fears  had  subsided,  they 
thought  best  not  to  let  Ah  Cheng  and  Ti 
find  places  to  work  among  the  American 
Christiana  of  the  town  among  the  pines, 
after  all. 

"It  will  be  better  for  them  at  some 
Christian  mission  house  in  the  city,"  de- 
cided the  teachers,  and  they  speedily 
wrote  up  to  Ti's  former  city-mission 
teacher,  asking  her  to  come  and  take  Ti 
and  his  aunt  back  with  her  to  some 
Christian  mission  house  for  Chinese  in  the 
city. 

The  city  teacher  came  speedily.  Quickly 
were  arrangements  made,  and  one  day  Ti 
and  Ah  Cheng  bade  good-by  to  the  kind 
teachers  of  the  hamlet,  and  went  with  the 
city-mission  teacher  on  board  a  vessel  that 
was  about  to  sail  from  the  southern  bay 
north  toward  the  city  once  more. 

The  city  teacher  was  thankful,  as  she 
stood  beside  Ti  on  the  vessel  after  it  had 
set  sail,  and  knew  that  now  the  boy  and 
his  aunt  would  have  a  Christian  home 
where  they  would  no  longer  be  struck  and 
reviled  and  threatened  because  they  did 


TI:  A    STORY  OF  CHINATOWN. 


93 


not  worship  the  gods.  Ti  could  study 
and  work.  A  Christian  Chinese  shoe- 
maker had  promised  to  teach  him  shoe- 
making  in  the  city. 

The  teacher  looked  down  at  the  boyish 
face  beside  her. 

"  Are  you  not  glad  to  go  back  to  the 
city,  Ti?"  she  said. 

The  boy  looked  up  with  a  quick  smile. 
"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  I  velly  glad!" 

Then  he  looked  far  across  the  water 
again,  and  the  gladness  faded  from  his 
face.  The  teacher  looked  where  his  gaze 
seemed  fixed.  She  saw,  far  across  the 
blue  bay,  the  two  American  towns,  and 
there  between  them  a  dark  line  on  the 
bay  shore.  The  line  was  the  Chinese 
hamlet. 

"  What  is  it,  Ti?"  she  asked,  seeing  the 
soberness  of  the  child's  gaze. 

A  wave  of  emotion  swept  over  Ti's  face. 
"  Teacher,"  he  said  earnestly,  his  voice 
trembling  with  feeling,  "  I  got  two  little 
Chinese  cousin  in  that  place,  Lum  Lee's 
little  boy  and  girl.  I  'fraid  they  never 
love  Jesus!  Teacher,  I  think  of  the  other 
Chinese  fishing  place  where  I  did  live. 
Nobody  there  tell  Chinese  'bout  Jesus! 
Nobody  came,  all  the  time  I  live  there, 
to  tell  Chinese  'bout  Jesus!  Teacher, 
great  many  little  Chinese  boys  and  girls 
in  all  Cal'forn'a!  They  don't  know  'bout 
Jesus!  Nobody  teach  them!  Oh,  teacher, 


it  makes  me  feel  bad!  They  don't  know 
'bouT  Jesus!  Teacher,  some  day  when  I 
grow  big,  I  go  everywhere!  I  go  tell  all 
little  Chinese  girls  and  boys  'bout  Jesus! 
Oh,  teacher,  I  so  glad  you  teach  me  'bout 
Jesus  when  I  was  little!" 

The  boy  choked.  A  great  tear  rolled 
down  his  cheek. 

The  teacher's  own  eyes  were  full.  Too 
well  did  she  know  the  stories  of  many  of 
the  hapless  little  ones  who  "don't  know 
'bout  Jesus." 

"  God  bless  you,  Ti,"  said  she  gently. 
"  Tell  them!  Tell  all  the  poor  little  Chi- 
nese children  you  can  about  Jesus.  There 
are  so  few  to  tell  them!" 

Ti  went  away,  and  the  teacher  stood 
and  looked  afar  across  the  water.  She 
thought  of  the  multitude  of  little  Chinese 
children  born  and  brought  up  in  Christian 
America,  and  yet  without  Christian  teach- 
ing. "  They  ought  to  be  reached.  They 
ought  to  be  taught,"  she  said  to  herself. 
"  The  poor  little  Chinese  children!  Often 
the  parents  won't  believe  us  teachers 
when  we  tell  them  of  Jesus  and  his  love, 
but  sometimes  they  will  believe  their  chil- 
dren when  they  carry  home  the  gospel 
we  have  taught  them.  Oh,  if  only  there 
were  more  teachers  to  tell  the  story  to  the 
poor  little  Chinese  children!  Dear  Lord, 
send  forth  more  laborers  into  this,  thine 
harvest!" 


THE    END. 


